100+ Top Privacy and Security Stories of the 21st Century

Abeerah Hashim  - Security Expert
Last updated: November 13, 2023
Read time: 53 minutes
Facts checked by Ali Qamar
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These top privacy and security stories of the 21st century highlight various underlying causes and teach critical lessons. Let's dive in!

THE TAKEAWAYS

Since the beginning, the 21st century has been a roller coaster ride for the cybersecurity community. From the ever-evolving cybersecurity threats to the changing IT requirements of the remote-working model, security officials have had to deal with a lot of technical stuff. Consequently, the past years have provided us with many privacy and security stories that can serve as a lesson for IT personnel to devise their security plans in the future. This article quickly reviews top memorable stories with a lesson for everyone.

Cybersecurity experts have been busy since the beginning of the 21st century (even before that).

While data breaches were already on the rise, we witnessed a particular increase in ransomware attacks this year.

This is all in addition to businesses’ and consumers’ childish behavior toward securing their systems, fixing bugs, and paying attention to their online privacy.

Perhaps, this is why, despite repeated alerts and recommendations, the cybercriminals succeeded in their malicious activities. Today, seeing businesses shutting down due to hackers is not shocking.

So, with this article, we list the top privacy and security stories of the 21st century (2000 till now).

Top 30 privacy and security stories of the 21st century — Quick list

  1. Travelex paid for recovery after a ransomware attack: On December 31, 2019, Travelex services suffered a ransomware attack from the Sodinokibi gang which took down their websites and mobile apps.