With the advancements in technology, data breaches have become a common occurrence. For example, data breaches grew from a mere 600 in 2010 to over 1800 in 2021 in the United States only. Likewise, the annual security breaches have also grown exponentially in the rest of the world.
Data breaches have a devastating impact on the victims, be they individuals, organizations, or governments. Essentially, they could lead to severe financial losses, legal consequences, reputational damage, privacy loss, or even a threat to national security.
This article provides a detailed discussion of the biggest breaches worldwide, how they happen, types of data breaches, data breach targets, damages, and much more.
Quick list of the biggest data breaches since 2000
- Yahoo: Breach happened in 2013-2014 affecting 3 billion user accounts, but remained undetected over the following three years.
- Aadhaar: Hackers managed accessing sensitive details of over 1.2 billion registered Indians and selling it on WhatsApp groups.
- LinkedIn: The professional networking service exposed the data of around 700 million users to criminal hackers.
- Sina Weibo: The Chinese social media giant exposed personal information of 538 million users to the hackers who exploited the platform’s API.