As the days and weeks go by, it\u2019s hard to keep track of all the data breaches we\u2019ve encountered.\u00a0 As is the way of things, it seems like we have a fresh breach every week now and that doesn\u2019t seem to be slowing.<\/p>\n
So, with that in mind and also the fact we\u2019re in a new decade, we thought it high time that we took a stroll down memory lane and look at the ten largest data breaches of the past decade.\u00a0 Brace yourselves.<\/p>\n
Just over 419 million unprotected Facebook<\/a> records were found online.\u00a0 This data also included millions of phone records which could in turn be used for spam, phishing and even SIM-swap<\/a> fraud.<\/p>\n The now defunct Cambridge Analytica<\/a> harvested 50 million Facebook profiles.\u00a0 Whilst the numbers are not as large as some of the others in this list, the severity of the breach lead to big changes across Facebook as well as political pressure from governments around the world.<\/p>\n In a move that surprised many in the cyber-security world, Uber<\/a> paid hackers $100,000 to hush a breach that affected around 57 million customers.<\/p>\n 412 million accounts were stolen by hackers in back in November, 2016.\u00a0 What made this significant wasn\u2019t so much the size of the breach, but more the fact that the website in question is a \u2018sex and swinger\u2019 site, meaning the data in question is much more personal.<\/p>\n Back in the December of 2015, around 191 million voter registration details were leaked<\/a> online thanks to an incorrectly configured database.\u00a0 The data included names, addresses, phone numbers, date of births, party affiliations and more.<\/p>\n 145 million customer details were compromised<\/a>. Hackers were able to gain access via stolen corporate email details, eventually gaining access to the customer records.\u00a0 eBay came under fire for not disclosing the breach quickly enough.<\/p>\n The U.S retail giant was hit<\/a> by theft of card details and personal data amounting to around 70 million customers in total.\u00a0 What made this particularly unique was that the hackers were able to install malware on the PoS machines<\/a> inside stores, enabling them to steal card details.<\/p>\n Way back in 2012, Dropbox<\/a> became the victim of a sophisticated data breach, with around 68 million passwords making their way into the hands of attackers.\u00a0 Sadly, this was all made possible because an employee used the same password<\/a> for work and other unrelated accounts.<\/p>\n In 2011 Sony was the victim<\/a> of an attack which led to the theft of credit-card information from their PlayStation Network.\u00a0 A major problem with some of the data was that it hadn\u2019t been encrypted, meaning it was easy for hackers to use the data.<\/p>\n Perhaps one of the most significant leaks of the past decade (if not THE most significant), saw the release of just over 250,000 despatches from 250 US embassies.\u00a0 This sort of breach highlights the significance they can have.<\/p>\n So there you have it, ten of the most significant breaches of the past decade.\u00a0 Considering the numbers above, the chances are you were affected by one or more of them, so perhaps now\u2019s a good time to think about changing passwords<\/a> or even closing<\/a> accounts you no longer need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We look back at some of the most significant data-breaches of the past ten years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":18518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1622,2026],"tags":[2412,93,2390,43,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-18516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-privacy","8":"category-threats","9":"tag-advice","10":"tag-cybercriminals","11":"tag-data-breaches","12":"tag-privacy","13":"tag-security-2"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/the-ten-largest-data-breaches-of-the-past-decade\/18516\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/data-breaches\/","name":"data breaches"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18516"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18522,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516\/revisions\/18522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}9: Cambridge Analytica, March 2018<\/strong><\/h5>\n
8: Uber, November 2017<\/strong><\/h5>\n
7: Friend Finder Network, November 2016<\/strong><\/h5>\n
6: US voter database, December 2015<\/strong><\/h5>\n
5: eBay, May 2014<\/strong><\/h5>\n
4: Target, December 2013<\/strong><\/h5>\n
3: Dropbox, August 2012<\/strong><\/h5>\n
2: Sony PlayStation Network, April 2011<\/strong><\/h5>\n
1: WikiLeaks US embassy cables, November 2010.<\/strong><\/h5>\n