10 Major Cyber-Attacks of 21st Century

1. Cyber-Attack on Yahoo!

• Personal info, passwords, security questions, and answers of 3 billion users.

• The Yahoo group once valued at $100 billion was sold to Verizon for $4.48 billion.

2. eBay Cyber-Attack

• User’s database hacking by using corporate employee’s accounts.

• May 2014.

• Complete access to the network for 229 days.

• Personal info, and encrypted passwords of around 145 million users.

• The financial data of the customers was not compromised.

• Criticism of the company and losses.

3. Equifax Cyber Attack

• US credit bureau.

• Major blow - data of 143 million customers hacked.

• Personal and sensitive access.

• The credit card information of around 209,000 consumers was stolen.

• An application vulnerability on their site resulted in a data attack.

• The attack was exposed on July 29, 2017, but probably started mid-May.

4. Target Stores Data Breach

• December 2013.

• A data breach compromised the Credit/debit card details and/or contact information of around 110 million people.

• Access to the private network by exploiting a vulnerability through a third-party vendor for the HVAC system to POS payment card readers.

• Cyber-attacks cost around $162 million.

• CEO and CIO resigned.

5. Uber Cyber-Security Breach

• Discovered in late 2016, and publicized 1 year later.

• The data breach resulted in compromising the personal info of 57 million Uber users and 600,000 Uber driver’s driver license numbers.

• Uber offered the hackers $100,000 to destroy the data without verifying they did.

• Loss of reputation and finances of the company.

• The company was in negotiation to sell its stakes to Softbank, at the time the breach was announced. The value of the deal lowered from $68 billion to $48 billion.

6. JP Morgan Chase Data Breach

• July 2014.

• Compromised info of 6 million households and 7 million small businesses.

• No monetary losses.

• The hackers gained privileges over 90 bank servers.

7. US Office of Personnel Management – The OPM Data Breach

• Intrusion through a third-party contractor.

• Started in 2012 – discovered March 20, 2014.

• Another in May 2014, discovered almost 1 year later.

• Security clearance data and fingerprint information of over 22 million current and past federal workers.

8. Cyber Attack on Sony PlayStation Network

• April 20, 2011.

• Biggest data breach in the gaming industry.

• 77 million Network accounts. These accounts had 12 million accounts that had unencrypted credit card numbers.

• Personal info, logins, and passwords.

• Losses are estimated at $171 million.

• Initial $15 million reimbursement in a lawsuit over the breach.

9. RSA Security Attack

• March 2011.

• Cyber-security breach of the mighty security giant’s SecurID authentication tokens of the company RSA.

• Phishing attacks on RSA employees and impersonated as individuals and intruded into the network of the company.

• Estimated to have stolen 40 million employee records.

10. Adobe Cyber Attack

• October 2013.

• Personal info, IDs, passwords, and debit and credit card information of over 38 million users.

• Adobe paid $1 million as legal fees to resolve prerogatives of violating the Customer Records Act and biased business practices.