A Few of the Major Incidents of Data Breachs

Major incidents From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well known incidents include:

2013[edit]

• In October 2013, Adobe Systems revealed that their corporate data base was hacked and some 130 million user records were stolen. According to Adobe, "For more than a year, Adobe’s authentication system has cryptographically hashed customer passwords using the SHA-256 algorithm, including salting the passwords and iterating the hash more than 1,000 times. This system was not the subject of the attack we publicly disclosed on October 3, 2013. The authentication system involved in the attack was a backup system and was designated to be decommissioned. The system involved in the attack used Triple DES encryption to protect all password information stored."^[7]
  Further information: Adobe Systems#Source code and customer data breach

2012[edit]

• In the Summer of 2012, Wired.com Senior Writer Mat Honan claims that "hackers destroyed my entire digital life in the span of an hour” by hacking his Apple, Twitter, and Gmail passwords in order to gain access to his Twitter handle and in the process, claims the hackers wiped out every one of his devices, deleting all of his messages and documents, including every picture he had ever taken of his 18-month-old daughter.^[8] The exploit was achieved with a combination of information provided to the hackers by Amazon's tech support through social engineering, and the password recovery system of Apple which used this information.^[9] Related to his experience, Mat Honan wrote a piece outlining why passwords cannot keep users safe.^[10]

2011[edit]

• In April 2011, Sony experienced a data breach within their PlayStation Network. It is estimated that the information of 77 million users was compromised.
• In March 2011, RSA suffered a breach of their SecurID token system seed-key warehouse, where the seed keys for their 2-Factor authentication system were stolen, allowing the attackers to replicate the hardware tokens used for secure access in corporate and government environments.
• In June 2011, Citigroup disclosed a data breach within their credit card operation, affecting approximately 210,000 or 1% of their customers' accounts.^[11][12]

2009[edit]

• In December 2009 a RockYou! password database was breached containing 32 million user names and plaintext passwords, further compromising the use of weak passwords for any purpose.
• In May 2009 the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was revealed by The Daily Telegraph. A hard disk containing scanned receipts of UK Members of Parliament and Peers in the House of Lords was offered to various UK newspapers in late April, with The Daily Telegraph finally acquiring it. They published details in installments from 8 May onwards. Although it was intended by Parliament that the data was to be published, this was to be in redacted form, with details the individual members considered "sensitive" blanked out. The newspaper published unredacted scans which showed details of the claims, many of which appeared to be in breach of the rules and suggested widespread abuse of the generous expenses system. The resulting media storm led to the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons and the prosecution and imprisonment of several MPs and Lords for fraud. The expenses system was overhauled and tightened up, being put more on a par with private industry schemes. The Metropolitan Police Service continues to investigate possible frauds, and the Crown Prosecution Service is considering further prosecutions. Several MPs and Lords apologised and made whole, partial or no restitution, and retained their seats. Others who had been shamed in the media did not offer themselves for re-election at the United Kingdom general election, 2010. Although numbering less than 1,500 individuals, the affair received the largest global media coverage of any data breach (as at February 2012).
• In January 2009 Heartland Payment Systems announced that it had been "the victim of a security breach within its processing system", possibly part of a "global cyber fraud operation".^[13] The intrusion has been called the largest criminal breach of card data ever, with estimates of up to 100 million cards from more than 650 financial services companies compromised.^[14]

2008[edit]

• In January 2008, GE Money, a division of General Electric, disclosed that a magnetic tape containing 150,000 social security numbers and in-store credit cardinformation from 650,000 retail customers is known to be missing from an Iron Mountain Incorporated storage facility. J.C. Penney is among 230 retailers affected.^[15]
• Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey, January, 300,000 members ^[1]
• Lifeblood, February, 321,000 blood donors ^[1]
• British National Party membership list leak,^[16]
• In Early 2008, Countrywide Financial (since acquired by Bank of America) allegedly fell victim to a data breach when, according to news reports and court documents, employee Rene L. Rebollo Jr. stole and sold up to 2.5 million customers' personal information including social security numbers.^[17][18] According to the legal complaint: "Beginning in 2008 - coincidentally after they sold their mortgage portfolios under wrongful and fraudulent 'securitization pools,' and coincidentally after their mortgage portfolio went into massive default as a result thereof - Countrywide learned that the financial information of potentially millions of customers had been stolen by certain Countrywide agents, employees or other individuals."^[19] In July 2010, Bank of America settled more than 30 related class-action lawsuits by offering free credit monitoring, identity theft insurance and reimbursement for losses to as many as 17 million consumers impacted by the alleged data breach. The settlement was estimated at $56.5 million not including court costs.^[20]

2007[edit]

• D. A. Davidson & Co. 192,000 clients' names, customer account and social security numbers, addresses and dates of birth^[21]
• The 2007 loss of Ohio and Connecticut state data by Accenture
• TJ Maxx, data for 45 million credit and debit accounts^[22]
• 2007 UK child benefit data scandal
• CGI Group, August, 283,000 retirees from New York City ^[1]
• The Gap, September, 800,000 job applicants ^[1]
• Memorial Blood Center, December, 268,000 blood donors ^[1]
• Davidson County Election Commission, December, 337,000 voters ^[1]

2006[edit]

• AOL search data scandal (sometimes referred to as a "Data Valdez",^[23][24][25] due to its size)
• Department of Veterans Affairs, May, 28,600,000 veterans, reserves, and active duty military personnel,^[1][26]
• Ernst & Young, May, 234,000 customers of Hotels.com (after a similar loss of data on 38,000 employees of Ernst & Young clients in February) ^[1]
• Boeing, December, 382,000 employees (after similar losses of data on 3,600 employees in April and 161,000 employees in November, 2005) ^[1]

2005[edit]

• Ameriprise Financial, stolen laptop, December 24, 260,000 customer records ^[1]