The Top 10 Worst Data Breaches of all Time

Data Breaches are on the rise, creating disasters for companies throughout the world. Just this year, there have been seemingly endless security breaches and hacks, with the victims being both individuals and organizations. While taking protective measures should be the first solution to stay ahead of threats, understanding the types of data breaches and knowing how hackers attempt an attack  can enable you to be better prepared.

1. YAHOO, 2013

Yahoo faced a massive data breach in  2013, compromising volumes and volumes of sensitive data of more than 1 billion users. The compromised data included names, telephone numbers, passwords, login credentials and more. Records show that the stolen data did not stash any plaintext passwords, bank financial information, or credit card data.

2. YAHOO, 2014

Following the 2013 data breach, Yahoo faced yet another data breach in 2014. The after affect was almost as bad, exposing more than 500 million user accounts. IBMs Chief digital Officer – Bob Lord said “The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. The ongoing investigation suggested that stolen information did not include unprotected passwords, payment card data, or bank account information; payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system that the investigation has found to be affected.”

3. FRIENDFINDER, 2016

FriendFinder Networks (FFN), a famous adult dating and entertainment company faced a massive data breach in 2016. Sources reveal that about 412 million user accounts were compromised and exposed by the hackers. Leaked Source, a site that notifies users on breaches said “this data set will not be searchable by the general public on our main page temporarily for the time being.”

4. MYSPACE, 2016

MySpace was a victim of a massive breach attack affecting 360 million accounts in 2016. The compromised data included passwords, usernames and email addresses. After seeing a massive impact the site was relaunched with additional security measures in place.

5. LINKEDIN, 2012

In 2012, Linkedin suffered a severe data breach, loosing 167 million user account credentials. Sources like Fortune reveals “160 million of the compromised accounts have unique email addresses, while the remaining 7 million only include numerical user IDs and passwords.”

6. MASSIVE AMERICAN BUSINESS HACK, 2012

A data breach that must be mentioned is the huge American business hack that happened in 2012 affecting 7-Eleven and NASDAQ. The security breach compromised 160 million users’ credit cards and debit cards from over 800,000 financial accounts. Sources reveal that the breach was launched by a group of Russian cyber criminals along with one Ukrainian.

7. ADOBE SYSTEMS, 2013

Compromising 152 million user login details and hashed passwords Adobe systems faced a massive breached affecting 3 million users which saw an exponential rise to 38 million.

8. EBAY, 2014

The eBay faced a massive data breach exposing 145 million eBay user accounts. The breach was established as a platform to help hackers stay extract the users’ credential information.

9. HEARTLAND, 2009

Heartland experienced a traumatic data breach affecting payroll customers.
The security breach was imposed through SQL injection attacks exposing 130 million credit cards

10. RAMBLER, 2012

Rambler.ru is the most popular website in the world well known for news, advertising, emails, and searches – it is like a Russian version of Yahoo. The website hosted more than 980 million accounts in its database that includes email addresses, usernames, passwords, and social account data. The passwords were unencrypted and the data was completely washed out through the data breach.

Also Read:

500px’s Data Breach, Happening Since July 2018

All about Data Breaches, How They Happen and Their Impact

“THEY WANT WHAT YOU’VE GOT. DON’T GIVE IT TO THEM..”