In this cyber generation knowing that your email or social networking profile being compromised is a biggest nightmare ever. Data Breaching is the biggest threat to cyber policing these days. The degree of Data Breach is measued in respect to the sensitivity of Data stolen. What could hackers do with your stolen data? If it comprise of your credit card details they might use it for purchases and if it is your email then they could use that for unmoral activities. Well, it is estimated that on an average at least 4 medium data breaches happens all over the world in a minute which costs a damage of more than 1 Million dollars. So just imagine the level and scale of these breaches could do to the economy. Here are those top 9 Data breaches happened in the cybercrime history which has paid a lot for those nations and organizations.
9. JP Morgan Chase – 2014 – 76 million users affected
JP Morgan, the US’s largest bank has seen a major Data breach and got compromised by hackers. Hackers have stolen the address, email Ids and phone numbers of account holders. Surprisingly the hack was not a sudden and it went step by step for a month. It started in June 2014 and until end of July bank couldn’t figure it out that the servers have been compromised. Though there isn’t any economical mischief happened, it is said that Morgan has lost reputation from a part of people.
8. US Military – 2009 – 75 million users affected
The Social Security numbers of all military Veterans dating 1972 were stolen because of a small mistake. The US military has sent a data disk for recycling. However, they have forgot that the data was not encrypted. This leaded for a biggest data breach in the history of US Military.
7. Anthem – 2015 – 80 million users affected
The second largest Health care provider in US and they actually hold the very sensitive data of the users. The hackers have targeted the loop holes in the servers and have stolen the most sensitive data of the members including some of the bank details too. Anthem has to upscale its servers and had spent a huge amount to assure that its members were unaffected.
6. AOL – 2009 – 92 million users affected
A former employee of this American online software company has stolen more than 92 million screen names and email ID’s. He had sold them to spammers. It is estimated that more than 7 billion unsolicited email’s has been exchanged which made email servers to hang.
5. TK/TJ Maxx – 2007 – 94 million users affected
One of the largest retail chain in the US. One of its store Wi-Fi in Minnesota was hacked by the hackers and the Debit and credit card information of more than 94 million transactions were stolen. It is said that though there isn’t much effect for the users but still may proclaim that a small amounts from all cards were detected without their knowledge. Surprisingly that small amount of all cards together is in Million dollars.
4. Heartland – 2009 – 113 million users affected
This is the biggest credit card scam in the history. Heartland is one of the payment gateway services in US with more than 160 clients. Hackers have hacked the 128 bit encrypted gateway servers and have stolen all the Credit card information for more than a million transactions. Heartland has to pay more than 110 Million dollars to Master card, VISA, American express etc.., to settle the claims.
3. Ebay – 2014 – 145 million users affected
Hackers have hacked into the Ebay database by using the credentials of some employees. Hackers have stolen large amount of user data like mail ID’s, usernames and addresses. Ebayhas ordered all its employees to change their passwords.
2. Voter Database (U.S) – 2015 – 191 million users affected
191 million citizen data has been leaked out as the hackers have hacked a data base with weak security configuration. The owner of the data base is still unknown and the federal agents are on it to crack the mystery.
1. Court Ventures – 2011 – 200 million users affected
Possibly the biggest data breach in the world ever known. Court Ventures is a brokerage agency. It has been hacked by Vietnamese Hackers group and they have stolen all the sensitive data of users and their stock details. The impact was so huge on Court ventures that it has sold its business to Experian, another brokerage agency.
The more the advancement in technology, the more the threat. All we could do is fight together !!!
