Major Data Breaches in the Recent Era Since 2013: A Comprehensive Overview
Top 10 Largest Data Breaches Since 2013: A Review
In the digital age, data breaches have become an unfortunate reality, affecting millions of individuals and organizations worldwide. Here is a rundown of the top 10 largest data breaches since 2013, ranked by the number of compromised records, and their impacts on privacy and security.
- CAM4 (2020): Approximately 10.88 billion records were exposed due to a server misconfiguration. This breach affected millions worldwide, highlighting severe privacy threats despite no confirmed misuse of data. [1][3]
- Yahoo (2013): The entire user base of 3 billion accounts was compromised. Hackers accessed names, birthdates, emails, and passwords exploiting cookie system weaknesses. This breach affected all Yahoo users and deeply damaged Yahoo’s valuation; Verizon lowered its acquisition offer by $350 million after disclosure. [1][2][3][4]
- First American Financial Corp. (2019): 885 million records of sensitive financial data were exposed online, including bank transactions and social security numbers, impacting trust in the company and raising concerns about financial data protection. [1]
- Facebook (2019): 540 million user records were exposed on an Amazon cloud server. Although not a direct hack, it revealed poor cloud data management policies, risking users' private information. [1]
- Marriott International (2018): Breach impacted approximately 500 million guests dating back to 2014, exposing names, passport numbers, and payment details. This caused reputational damage and regulatory scrutiny for Marriott. [1][4]
The list continues with significant breaches at MGM Resorts, AdultFriendFinder, Equifax, Court Ventures/Experian, and Deep Root Analytics. [1][2][3][4][5]
Additional impactful breaches include eBay (2014), Anthem (2015), Target (2013), and LexisNexis (2013). [1][2][3][5]
Impacts on individuals include identity theft risk, privacy loss, and financial fraud exposure. Organizations faced financial losses (e.g., Equifax’s $1.4B), reputational damage, regulatory scrutiny, legal settlements, and operational disruption (e.g., Verizon reducing Yahoo's purchase price, Marriott’s loss of customer trust).
These breaches underscore critical cybersecurity gaps across multiple sectors, emphasizing the need for robust data protection practices to safeguard sensitive information from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. [1][2][3][5]
Notable Breaches and Their Characteristics
- The LinkedIn breach in June 2021 saw a hacker put data from 700 million users up for sale on a darknet forum. [6]
- The Marriott data breach, which began in 2014 within the Starwood reservation system, exposed personal data, including names, addresses, phone numbers, passport numbers, and payment card details. [1][7]
- The breach at LinkedIn stemmed from data scraping, where automated software collected publicly available information from user profiles. [8]
- The breach went undetected for four years, highlighting significant vulnerabilities in Marriott's cybersecurity infrastructure. [7]
- In January 2018, a significant data leak exposed the personal information of 1.1 billion Indian residents from the Aadhaar national ID database. [9]
- Although biometric details like thumbprints and retina scans were not accessed, the incident raised serious concerns about data security. [9]
- Following the discovery, Marriott faced a $23.8 million fine from the UK Information Commissioner's Office. [10]
These incidents serve as a stark reminder of the importance of robust cybersecurity measures in the digital age. [1][2][3][5][6][7][8][9][10]
- The top 10 largest data breaches since 2013 highlight a worrying trend in technology, where data security issues have become more frequent and widespread.
- In the realm of general-news, there have been numerous instances of weird and unsettling data breaches, such as the Marriott incident where 500 million guests' personal data were exposed.
- These breaches also demonstrate the historical evolution of cybersecurity challenges, with early examples like the Yahoo breach in 2013 leading to more recent incidents like the CAM4 breach in 2020, underscoring the need for continued progress in technology and privacy protection.
