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There were 1,500 global data breaches in 2014, with the number rising almost 50 percent year-over-year, according to the Gemalto Breach Level Index (BLI) report. Of the 1 billion total compromised records, almost 800 million of them belong to US companies - a frightening figure that cybersecurity experts believe will rise.

Companies remain unsure how to address these sometimes sophisticated cyberattacks, while consumers are frustrated that their personal information is seemingly up for grabs. Banks and credit card companies are becoming more proactive in identifying - and informing customers - of fraud, but it can still be a chaotic process.

"Not only are data breach numbers rising, but the breaches are becoming more severe," said Jason Hart, VP of cloud services, identity and data protection at Gemalto. "Identity theft could lead to the opening of new fraudulent credit accounts, creating false identities for criminal enterprises, or a host of other serious crimes. As data breaches become more personal, we're starting to see that the universe of risk exposure for the average person is expanding."

Millions of Anthem customers are at risk from the Anthem data breach, including tens of millions of children impacted from the data breach. Personal information ranging from names, date of brith, Social Security numbers and health care ID numbers were stolen, and some children could be at risk for decades, according to cybersecurity experts.

Information on children is tied to their parents, so attacks against adult account holders are expected to accelerate in the future as well. However, personal information of children is especially lucrative to criminals, as the data hasn't been tied to a credit file - so the government and credit reporting agencies aren't expecting fraud-related activities.

"Every terrible outcome that can occur as the result of an identity theft will happen to the children who were on that database," said Adam Levin, chairman and founder of IDentityTheft911, in a statement published by NBC News. "Criminals will use those stolen Social Security numbers to open accounts, get medical treatment, commit tax fraud, you name it."

Set to be stuffed full of high-tech components including GTX 970's in SLI and an Intel 3770K slotted into an ASUS Maximus V Gene - this work in progress build by Simplemodz sets out to be a little different from the rest.

This Fractal Design R2 Mini has been custom-painted and cut up, displaying the molecules proudly through a green and white color scheme.

There's also a few display windows cut on the reverse side in order to display the HDD and Corsair SSD alongside Bitspower liquid cooling products currently being installed to help keep the system at low temperatures.

Just in case you weren't sure if eSports and professional gaming is reaching the general public just yet, I want to remind you all about that one time this world-class CS:GO team got themselves their own chocolate bar.

Ninjas in Pajamas (NiP) previously played host to the best CS:GO team in the world - by far, still managing to place highly in events, they once won 10 tournaments in a row without losing a single series to any team. Later on they developed into a larger organization, seeing a foray into League of Legends and Dota 2 expand them further into the market.

On April 2, 2014, the news was broken on their website that NiP would be collaborating with Candy People in order to produce their own chocolate bar product. Originally released as an April Fools joke, it was re-released as fact the day after.

Designed to mimic the human hand, this robot device with tendons can rotate two Baoding balls with ease - simulating the same process completed by your body.

We're told by Gizmodo that this task isn't exactly easy for just anyone to complete, further adding to the complexity displayed within this exercise. Most robots are clunky and stiff in their movements, however through the use of human-like tendons, this simulation is able to make light work of this difficult and nimble task.

Created through an extensive process, first the researchers created a dummy hand, then tracked and measuring six separate hand poses in which were used to rotate the ball, finally designing this tendon system to control the fake hand.

"Miss On the Go lets you tone your pelvic muscles at all times. Fantasies come alive with our app!" is what the Kickstarter headline reads, instantly jumping out at you.

So what exactly does this product intend to do? The answer is "combine utility & pleasure with technology to rev up your day!" The 'Ladies, Miss On the Go' claims to tone your pelvic muscles while delivering a vibrant experience -all controlled by a mobile application. If you're still not sure exactly what's going on, you can dig deeper.

Setting Canadian's back $95 CAD and the rest of the world $105 CAD for the first batch, it will be priced at $169 CAD once it's available for retail.

The current smart wearable band market is led by Samsung, while the basic wearable band leader is Fitbit, according to the Canalys research group. The smart wearable band is considered any device able to run third-party applications, and the basic wearable band is unable to run apps.

"Samsung has launched six devices in just 14 months, on different platforms and still leads the smart band market," said Chris Jones, VP and principal analyst Canalys, in a statement published by Mobihealthnews. "But it has struggled to keep consumers engaged and must work hard to attract developers while it focuses on [operating system] Tizen for its wearables."

Samsung, Fitbit, and other manufacturers will need to keep their sights set on Xiaomi, a surging smartphone manufacturer, which has also shipped more than 1 million non-smartwatch wearable Mi Bands.

The National Security Agency (NSA) believes North Korea is behind the Sony Pictures attack because of software used to breach the company. SPE was targeted in November by a group calling itself the "Guardians of Peace," with emails, employee personal information, movies, and other data stolen - and posted online.

"We ultimately ended up generating the signatures to recognize the activity used against Sony," said NSA Director Admiral Michael Rogers, in a statement during a security conference in Canada. "From the time the malware left North Korea to the time it got to Sony's headquarters in California, it crossed four different commanders' lines or areas in the US construct."

Cyberattacks are causing confusion for government agents, unexpectedly spending more time investigating breaches against private sector companies - as attacks mount against critical infrastructure and government agencies.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recommended Lenovo customers remove the Superfish adware from their computers and laptops. The Chinese electronics company installed the software on machines beginning in 2010 until January 2015, and Lenovo is no longer installing it on consumer products.

Despite Lenovo saying there were no cybersecurity issues, the National Cyber Awareness System said customers are vulnerable to SSL spoofing attacks. "Systems that came with the software already installed will continue to be vulnerable until corrective actions have been taken," the DHS said in a statement published by Reuters.

"We should have known about this sooner," said Brion Tingler, Lenovo spokesman, in a statement to Reuters. "And if we could go back, we never would have installed this software on our machines. But we can't, so we are dealing with this head on."

US State Department officials confirmed the agency temporarily shut down its unclassified email system because of hacker activity three months ago - and it looks like security experts still haven't been able to boot the unwelcome guests from its network.

It remains unknown where the attacks originated, but specialists suggest it could be from Russia. No classified data has been accessed, but there is growing concern the hackers will be able to write false emails, delete emails and find a way to access classified networks.

"We have robust security to protect our systems and our information, and we deal successfully with thousands of attacks every day," said Marie Harf, State Department spokeswoman, in a statement to Bloomberg. "We take any possible cyber intrusion very seriously."

Not long ago, we shared with you this highly-priced 'directional audio Ethernet cable' - poised to set users back $10,000 from retailers and a sure-fire way to broadcast to the world that you have a lot of money, but not a lot of sense. Well it seems Sony has jumped on the audiophile bandwagon yet again, releasing their Micro SD card tailored "for Premium Sound."

This 64GB card will cost users $160 and is positioned at around five times the cost of a 'regular' 64GB option. According to Sony, this card will produce less electrical noise - therefore increasing your audio experience. A spokeswoman has even admitted that Sony has no idea if this thing will even move units, stating "we aren't that sure about the product's potential demand, but we thought some among people who are committed to great sound quality would want it."

If you've got some money to waste, this $160 Micro SD card will suit your $1,000 Sony Walkman ZX2 quite well.

The polished metal finish and unique color design ensures that this new addition to the Corsair Dominator series is like no other. The Dominator series as a whole certainly isn't new, I remember filling my i7 2600k system back in 2011 with a few sticks of red Dominator's - however the product name lives on and it sure has aged well!

Custom-designed for and paired brilliantly with the GIGABYTE GA-X99-SOC Force motherboard, we can't wait for this DDR4 RAM to be thrown into a system - paging all modders!

Featuring a tested Latency of 16-18-18-40, this set of RAM is "guaranteed to run at 3400MHz at ambient room temperature" according to Corsair's official website.

Google doesn't like the idea of the FBI being able to easily access Internet-connected devices owned by consumers, with the company sending a 14-page letter to officials.

"Law-abiding citizens who were the target of an unconstitutional search but are not charged with a crime will almost certainly never learn of the search and therefore will not be able to challenge the search," said Richard Salgado, director of information security and law enforcement for Google, in a letter to the US government.

Not surprisingly, the federal government thinks it needs access to user data to bust criminals and for better national security:

While Epic Games' founder Tim Sweeney is teasing that VR will be indistinguishable from real life within 10 years, the company has just announced its Unreal Dev Grants program that will see developers working in and around its powerful Unreal Engine 4.

Epic Games has placed $5 million into the kitty for Unreal Dev Grants, where the studio will award developers amounts between $5000 and $50,000. Better yet, the studio will not be attaching any strings to the project. Tim Sweeney has weighed into the chat about Unreal Dev Grants, where he said that in order to fund the release of his first game, Sweeney borrowed his father's tractor and spent two entire summers mowing lawns. He said that the cost of getting games from the prototype stage to finished projects takes much more than just a part-time summer job.

Sweeney spoke with Polygon, where he said: "There's absolutely no substitute for money because some of these things require real-world expenses and can't be solved just by creativity and motivation alone". He added: "It's really hard for an indie now, given how crowded the market is. Even if you're going to start a Kickstarter campaign, that takes a significant effort. And that's a big change from the original days. So we set up this grant program to help people make that first big leap, which we see pretty consistently now requires some financial resources".

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has big goals for his company's Internet.org campaign, designed to bring affordable, reliable Internet access to people across the world. Ideally, the organization will be able to shorten the technological gap of citizens, especially in developing nations where there are plenty of mobile users - but unreliable Internet access.

Zuckerberg launched Internet.org in 2013 and Facebook has largely worked behind-the-scenes with Samsung, Qualcomm, Ericsson and other corporate partners. A free mobile app has been released in a number of nations, giving users access to Facebook, Google Search, AccuWeather - creating opportunities for first-time users to benefit from connected services.

"Yeah, our team is in contact with them frequently, and I talk to a number of folks over there," said Zuckerberg, in an interview on Studio 1.0 on Bloomberg Television. "When we launched in Zambia, Google was actually one of the services that was in the Internet.org suite, and that's valuable. In addition to health services and education, jobs and different government services and communication tools, people need to be able to search and find information. And whether we work with Google or others on that in all of these other countries, I think that is an important thing. I'd love to work with Google. They are a great search product."

Rock Band was a staple of parties and catch ups with friends, but with the PS4 and Xbox One now here, it's all but dried up. That is, until a new report from Bloomberg teased that Harmonix is working on a new Rock Band title for the PS4 and Xbox One consoles.

Harmonix was asked to comment on the news, with the developer telling Eurogamer: "We're excited by how enthusiastic our fans have been in regards to our most recent DLC releases, and we think it's awesome that people are speculating about the future of the franchise!" The developer continued: "While we don't have anything to announce, hundreds of thousands of unique users are still actively playing Rock Band games each month. This passion our fans have shown for Rock Band over the years suggests that rock truly hasn't died, and we've always been clear that we'd love to return to the franchise when the time is right".

Considering the last Rock Band game was released in 2012 as Rock Band Blitz, it's about damn time we see another Rock Band game, especially with the new consoles now here!

Early last month, 'District 9' and 'Elysium' director Neil Blomkamp posted some interesting concept art for a potential fifth 'Alien' film to his Instagram account, along with the caption "Was working on this. Don't think I am anymore. Love it though. #alien #xenomorph" But whilst on the publicity trail for his latest picture 'Chappie', Director Neil Blomkamp has confirmed he has signed on to direct the film after all, tweeting out a piece of H.R. Giger artwork with the caption "Um... So I think it's officially my next film. #alien"

Whilst studio Twentieth Century Fox has not yet made an official announcement, Deadline Hollywood has revealed that Ridley Scott, who directed the first 'Alien' picture in 1979 will produce and assist with the script, which interestingly will be set after the forthcoming sequel to 'Prometheus'.

Blomkamp's 'Chappie', which is released next month, stars Sigourney Weaver who allegedly sparked his interest in the 'Alien' project, so its seems a safe bet that the next film will finally give her the character the closure that's been sorely needed since 1997's 'Alien: Resurrection'.

With Sony pulling out of most of its markets and concentrating on mostly camera sensors and its PlayStation console, it should come as no surprise that the company is set to focus on its PS4-based VR headset, Project Morpheus, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015.

Sony will be giving hands-on demos of its system, as well as more details on its plans for its VR headset. We don't know what Sony will be showing off exactly, as the company could surprise the world with an updated version of Project Morpheus, which is what I want to see. Almost like the DK2 to the DK1 from Oculus VR, as Oculus has even passed that with the latest Crescent Bay prototype.

We will be reporting about all things GDC 2015 as the event kicks off early next month in San Francisco.

Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games and the brain behind the Unreal Engine, has said that there are some insane things going on with VR right now, but a lot of them aren't being shown to the public.

Sweeney was interviewed recently, where he said that he expects VR hardware and headsets to double in quality every few years for the next decade. He added that it will reach a point in around 10 years from now, that it will be hard to tell the difference between the VR world, and the real-world that surrounds you right now.

Oculus VR is expected to launch its first consumer-ready version of the Oculus Rift sometime this year, which I'm sure we're going to hear more about at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) which kicks off in just a couple of weeks time.

It's kind of an end of an era for Sony, with the Japanese giant falling on its sword in multiple of its failing divisions. We've seen the company sell of its VAIO laptop business, which is now making a comeback, but there's some more news that many will be sad over.

Sony wants to make a 25-fold increase in its profits, by concentrating on products that actually make the company money. Considering the company has just recorded its sixth net loss in seven years, many can see why. Sony's stock on the other hand has actually grown by 80% in the last 12 months, as its CEO, Kaz Hirai, has been restructuring the core of Sony's business.

Hirai has been able to do this by focusing on making less products, to ensure they're making the right products, that sell well. This effort of restructuring will continue, but now the company has announced it will be pulling out of more markets. In the end, Sony will be making the PlayStation its near sole purpose, as well as making Sony camera sensors for companies like Apple. The company has thought of pulling out of the TV market with its Bravia brand, as LG and Samsung have been making serious inroads in the TV business over the years.