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The Internet is a worldwide platform for sharing information. It is a community of common interests. No country is immune to such global challenges as cybercrime, hacking, and invasion of privacy.
—Lu Wei[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”462″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”appear”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]Biggest Hacking Scandals of all Times[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]Knives and guns are no longer the weapons of choice for criminals. A keyboard is. Hacking has become the most effective way to either gain the most reward or do the most damage in a single crime. And due to the fact that individuals and companies care more about locking their doors and installing security cameras than encrypting and protecting their digital information, it is arguably easier to rob data than a house or an office building. Additionally, as hacking has popularized, a hacking community has emerged, creating competition for the biggest or baddest hack. Here are just a few of the worst:[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]1. and 2. Yahoo
Yahoo takes the cake when it comes to data breaches. Two breaches that their systems have undergone hold the top two places on this list. In September of 2016, Yahoo announced that two years prior 500 million Yahoo accounts had been breached. The evidence, according to Yahoo, pointed to a state-sponsored actor. A few months later, at the end of 2016, another Yahoo hacking incident came to light. A much bigger one. Yahoo announced that in August of 2013, 1 billion accounts had been breached, making it the largest hack on record. From the evidence that investigators found, the two hacking incidents were not linked. However, in both hacking incidents, everything from dates of birth and email addresses to encrypted security questions and answers and hashed passwords were stolen. Fortunately, no financial information was taken.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]3. Myspace
This massive data breach garnered nowhere as much news as Yahoo and other lesser hacks. But that is not because it was not on a wide scale, it is simply because Myspace is no longer a company that garners as much news. The attack compromised 360 million Myspace accounts sometime before June of 2013. Usernames, email addresses, and passwords were all stolen. Myspace, its owner Time Inc., and investigators have not been able to nail down an exact date for when the attack took place, which is not uncommon as many hackers can get access to a system and stay there for months without being detected.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”464″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”appear”][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]4. eBay
In early 2014, the massive online auction house was hacked. 145 million accounts were breached. It was a similar hack to the Yahoo ones, with email addresses, mailing addresses, birth dates and more being stolen. And still similarly to Yahoo’s hacks, no financial information was taken. The route of the hacking was identified: The hackers managed to obtain employee login credentials, which gave them access to the company’s corporate network.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]5. LinkedIn
The LinkedIn hack was a special one because the information that was stolen was very publicly sold. In May of 2016, the hacker who stole the information, an individual going by the name ‘Peace’, attempted to sell 117 million LinkedIn emails and passwords—this was 100 million more accounts than the company had originally believed to have been affected by they 2012 hack.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]6. Target
The Target hack may not be the largest hack of all time, but it has arguably been the most destructive hack. So destructive, in fact, that Target had to pay out $10 million to the victims of the massive data breach. The breach itself happened in 2013 and it affected 110 million individuals, who had all of their credit or debit card information stolen. This included everything from customer names and card numbers to the magnetic strip code and PIN data. Each victim, who could prove that their card information had been used or their credit history had been tarnished, could claim up to $10,000.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]7. AOL
In 2003, a crime was committed by an AOL employee. He hacked into the corporate system to steal a list of AOL customers, their emails, and their screen names. The employee sold this list of 92 million email addresses for $28,000. It was then circulated among spammers who sent unwarranted marketing emails to all of the addresses on the list. It cost the company $400,000, not to mention the loss in customers that it likely triggered. The employee was found guilty in court, sentenced to 15 months in prison and slapped with a hefty fine.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]8. Ashley Madison
While no financial harm came to any of the individuals who had their information stolen in the Ashley Madison hack, it has arguably become the most famous hack in recent years. The main reason for this is the loss of privacy. For a dating website that caters to married people, privacy is key. This privacy was lost when, first, the website was hacked and 32 million users’ information was stolen and then, second, that information was posted online for the world to see who was cheating on their spouse. The released data included user information, such as their names, addresses, passwords, and phones numbers, as well as transaction history on the website and descriptions of what the individual users were looking for.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”bottom-to-top”]These are just a handful of the hacks that have been perpetrated over the last few years. And these type of attacks are only becoming more and more common. Businesses, of every size and in every sector, as well as individuals, need to protect themselves. This is exactly what OrangeWebsite helps people and organizations do. We provide the highest level of protection against both hacking and governmental collection of private information. Try out our services with a 30-day money back guarantee, utilize our 24/7 technical support, and protect yourself, your information, and the information of those you do business with. For more information, please contact us.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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