The Biggest Cyberattacks Throughout History
tTech | May 10, 2021
We are nearly two decades into the worldwide digital explosion and things have not slowed down one bit. With the convenience of luxuries like shopping online and chatting with others around the country or world, why wouldn’t we all buy in on companies providing us with goods and services online? However, there are many individuals and groups that continue to exploit the “adolescent” internet users and feast upon others’ personal information. Even global powerhouse corporations have fallen victim to these groups and individuals. Cybersecurity companies and products do what they can to protect the privacy of those who trust the online services of different entities, but that hasn’t always stopped some of these cyberattacks. The top 10 largest recorded online breaches consist of the following:
• Yahoo
• CyberVor
• Marriot
• Adult Friend Finder
• Equifax
• Alteryx
• Target
• South Korea
• Sony
• Adobe
The number of breaches that span from Yahoo to Adobe adds up to around a whopping 3 billion breaches! Now, does that mean that 3 billion people experienced identity theft or lost all of their money? No, not quite. However, logins, passwords, names, credit card numbers, telephone numbers, postal addresses, email addresses, IP addresses, driver’s license numbers, social numbers, birthdates, company data and more has been accessed through these breaches. Some breaches, like the Russian-related CyberVor’s 1.2 billion, may seem harmless as nothing serious has been lost, but the consequences are severe.
Taking from the top-10 breaches, here are three examples of household-name companies that delivered a major blow to millions of people.
YAHOO: The greatest example in terms of cost for breaches like this can be summarized by the devastating hit Yahoo took in 2013-14. Yahoo, a company once worth $100 billion, sold for $4.5 billion to Verizon. That’s over $95 billion lost just on the value of the company alone.
MARRIOTT: The well-renowned global hotel chain confessed to losing 327 million individuals’ payment information, name, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, and more. This kind of breach is detrimental as the hackers have access to just about anything.
TARGET: While plenty of people love the feeling they get when they walk into this modern and clean grocery/ retail store, of 110 million customers, 40 million could not stop hackers from accessing their banking data. The other 70 million are victim to their personal data being hijacked. Other companies that are not listed in the top-10 that you’d recognize include JP Morgan/Chase, eBay and Home-Depot; whether or not you have a big-name brand or you are a small company, you may be the next victim of an online hacker. Further, the average cost of a breach in 2018 was about $3.9 million. That average is based on all companies that were breached around the globe, but the cost was even higher for companies in the US — $7.9 million. To make sure you avoid utter devastation, you MUST invest in a cybersecurity company that will provide you with services that give you complete coverage.
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