The biggest data leaks in history

In the modern digital world, we are increasingly faced with cases where data leaks intrude into our private lives. You may never have been a victim, but there is so much information about you on the internet that it is frightening. After watching the Netflix documentary The Great Hack, some of us have become paranoid users, so let’s take a look at the biggest leaks of sensitive data in recent years.

It all started innocently. A couple of students wanted to start a network that would allow them to connect via the internet. We’re talking about Facebook, which is the king of social networking. However, a sea of time has passed since 2004 when Facebook was founded and the internet has become our daily routine. Not just from Facebook, but from the entire internet, where we share our photos, email addresses, card numbers and other confidential information without any problem.

The interesting thing about sensitive data leaks is how they are created. In the last 6 years alone , nearly 15 billion pieces of data have been stolen or lost, 42% of which were caused by hackers and 29% were system errors. But that’s not the most interesting part. Did you know that one in four company employees are also responsible for data leaks? You’ve probably already thought twice about who you trust right? 😄

But let’s take a look at 3 specific cases of the biggest data leaks in history:

1. Yahoo – this company probably needs no introduction. However, it is important to know that Yahoo also includes sites like Flickr and Tumblr. And they experienced a big shock in 2013-2014, when their market value dropped by 350 million dollars “thanks” to hackers. Among the leaked information were names, email addresses, passwords, dates of birth, phone numbers and security questions and answers. All 3 billion accounts were hacked, without exception.
2. AOL (America Online) – In 2004, a software engineer and employee of this Internet services company stole 92 million names and emails, which he sold to an online retailer. It is estimated that this theft cost the company anywhere from $400,000 to several million dollars. The employee (Jason Smathers, 24) and the merchant (Sean Dunaway, 21) were charged with conspiracy, facing 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
3. Target – 2013 was not a very happy year for the US supermarket chain Target either. 40 million payment card details and 70 million contact details were leaked, which traditionally included names, email addresses, addresses and phone numbers. Investigators believe the data was obtained using terminals when paying by card.

If you opened this article mainly because of the 2018 incident where Mark Zuckerberg himself had to sit down in front of the US Congress, we may have just let you down a little. The Facebook affair (or rather Cambridge Analytica, which misused Facebook data to support President Donald Trump’s election campaign) ranked as high as 13th on the list of the biggest leaks of sensitive data (50 million accounts misused). Other rungs included companies such as eBay, LinkedIn, MySpace and Uber.

Sometimes we think we can’t control many things. But the point is that all the leaked data was put on the networks by the users themselves, even though they did not foresee that they were at risk. So always think twice about where you store your information, or whether you want to log in to all your apps with Facebook, for example. As they say, safety first 😄

Source : www.socialmediatoday.com