Over two billion records were stolen in 2016 alone. Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past year, it has been hard to miss the reports of major hacking that impacted our American economy and our global one as well. From the 2016 U.S. elections to banks to medical records – hackers were able to breach large corporations(public and private) and small businesses with equal skill. Let’s take a quick look and review the hackings that made the headlines this year. Visit our blogs again in the coming weeks as we discuss methods for you and your company to protect yourselves from hackers.
Feb 2016 Department of Justice – Kicking off the year the Department of Justice was compromised. Hackers angry about U.S. relations with Israel tried to call attention to their cause in February 2016 by breaching the U.S. Department of Justice’s database. CNN reported the hackers released data on 10,000 Department of Homeland Security employees one day, and then released data on 20,000 FBI employees the next day. A full week went by before the department realized the hack had occurred. While no sensitive data was believed to be lost it brought attention to the fact that even the US is not immune to hackers.
May 2016 LinkedIn – Social media giant LinkedIn was compromised this year when 117 million email and password combinations stolen by hackers four years ago popped up online.It is not clear who stole the information or published it online, but LinkedIn is actively working with law enforcement officials.
November 2016 AdultFriendFinder– This X-rated website, was targeted by hackers for the second time in two years. This time, though, the amount of accounts compromised was immense — approximately 412 million users had personal information stolen and published in online criminal marketplaces.
Information is Beautiful has been tracking Data Breaches since 2004. This year saw the largest spike in hacking and the largest number of files stolen or compromised. Here is a quick screenshot of the latest breaches. They tally in real time and keep track of breaches daily.
Categorised in: hacking