24 Largest Information Breaches in Historical past

Not all identities are stolen in the dead of night. Some slip by the cracks, unnoticed till it is too late.

I bear in mind when a knowledge breach meant a one-off information story a couple of forgotten web site leaking passwords. It felt remoted. However that’s not the case. In keeping with the IBM Value of a Information Breach Report 2024, the common value of a knowledge breach reached $4.88 million. For the world’s most high-profile leaks, the value tag goes far past steadiness sheets. 

The most important information breaches don’t simply compromise information, they shatter belief, derail operations, and leak identities. From social media giants to healthcare techniques, these weren’t simply remoted occasions. They had been the results of weak credentials, misconfigured cloud instruments, or attackers who knew precisely the place to look.

Even with the perfect defenses in place, breaches nonetheless occur — and after they do, the clock begins ticking. The quicker a company can assess the influence, notify affected customers, and keep forward of authorized obligations, the much less injury it will possibly comprise.

That’s the place information breach notification software program turns into vital. It simplifies a chaotic course of, ensures compliance, and helps ship well timed, correct alerts earlier than misinformation spreads or headlines do.

This text explores the most important information breaches lately, together with who was hit, the way it occurred, and the way the stakes hold getting greater. 

From monetary fallout to public outrage, every incident left behind greater than compromised data: they reshaped insurance policies, priorities, and perceptions of digital safety. 

In 2013, Yahoo suffered what stays the biggest confirmed information breach in historical past, compromising the non-public information of all 3 billion consumer accounts. The attackers gained entry to names, e-mail addresses, cellphone numbers, date of delivery, and hashed passwords.

The breach wasn’t publicly disclosed till 2016, and the total scope wasn’t confirmed till 2017. It considerably devalued Yahoo throughout its acquisition by Verizon and stays a cautionary story about transparency, legacy techniques, and the price of delayed breach disclosure.

In 2024, Nationwide Public Information, a knowledge dealer agency, was breached in an assault that uncovered as much as 2.9 billion data, together with Social Safety numbers, addresses, and different private identifiers. The breach was made worse by poor encryption practices and an absence of breach detection techniques.

The agency filed for chapter quickly after, and authorized motion adopted from affected people and state attorneys basic. This breach reignited debate round information brokers and regulatory oversight of non-public information assortment.

In 2018, experiences surfaced that Aadhaar, India’s nationwide biometric ID database, had been uncovered as a consequence of insecure authorities portals and third-party entry. Names, addresses, cellphone numbers, and Aadhaar numbers of near 1.1 billion residents had been made accessible for pennies.

Though the Indian authorities denied a breach of the central database, investigations revealed that entry was trivially straightforward through misconfigured endpoints. The incident raised severe issues about centralization, surveillance, and privateness in digital id techniques.

In late 2023, a menace actor leaked the non-public info of over 800 million Indian residents collected by the Indian Council of Medical Analysis, together with COVID-19 check data. The info included names, addresses, passport numbers, and Aadhaar IDs.

Safety researchers discovered the database on the market on the darkish internet and flagged weak entry controls. Whereas the Indian authorities has not formally confirmed the breach’s origin, it’s among the many largest health-related information exposures ever recorded.

In 2017, a misconfigured spam server uncovered over 700 million e-mail addresses, some with related passwords. The server, nicknamed Onliner Spambot, was used to distribute malware-laced emails and phishing assaults.

The breach wasn’t the results of hacking, however relatively poor safety hygiene. Most of the credentials got here from earlier breaches and had been reused, reinforcing the risks of weak password practices.

In 2021, information on 533 million Fb customers, together with cellphone numbers, birthdates, and e-mail addresses, was discovered on-line free of charge. The data had been scraped utilizing flaws in Fb’s contact import characteristic, which had been later mounted.

Although not a conventional hack, the info’s public availability led to phishing assaults and SIM-swapping issues. Fb declined to inform customers, stating that the info had been beforehand collected, sparking public backlash.

In late 2018, Marriott disclosed that attackers had been inside its Starwood visitor reservation system since 2014, affecting over 500 million visitors. The stolen information included names, addresses, journey particulars, and encrypted passport numbers.

The breach led to authorities inquiries and Common Information Safety Regulation (GDPR) fines. It additionally grew to become a case examine within the risks of inheriting insecure techniques throughout company mergers.

In 2016, a hacker group provided 360 million MySpace account credentials on the market on the darkish internet. Although MySpace was not broadly used, the leaked information included e-mail addresses and passwords from a time when many customers reused login data.

The breach underscored how long-forgotten platforms can nonetheless pose safety dangers years later as a consequence of reused credentials and poor password hygiene.

A vulnerability in Apache Struts went unpatched at Equifax, permitting hackers to exfiltrate extremely delicate information, together with SSNs, birthdates, and credit score particulars. The breach impacted almost 147 million shoppers.

After months of delay in disclosure, Equifax confronted regulatory fines, lawsuits, and congressional hearings. It stays one of the damaging breaches by way of monetary and private id fallout.

Hackers gained entry to eBay’s company community utilizing worker credentials and exfiltrated 145 million account particulars, together with usernames, encrypted passwords, and phone data.

eBay urged all customers to reset passwords however confronted criticism for sluggish response and obscure communication. The breach triggered world investigations and led to tighter company controls on worker entry.

Initially breached in 2012, LinkedIn noticed a re-emergence of the info in 2016 when 117 million email-password combos had been discovered on-line. The passwords had been poorly hashed utilizing unsalted SHA-1 encryption.

The breach renewed the concentrate on credential safety and prompted LinkedIn to implement stricter password resets and authentication protocols.

The breach affected 40 million bank cards and a further 70 million customers’ contact info. It led to a $18.5 million multistate settlement and accelerated retail adoption of chip-based cost terminals within the U.S.

From misplaced data to world headlines

Every information breach on this record is greater than a quantity. It’s a turning level — the place oversight met alternative, and attackers discovered the cracks. These incidents uncovered easy missteps and flaws in how we share info. Whether or not brought on by misconfigurations, credential stuffing, or subtle provide chain assaults, these breaches present a transparent reality: no database is just too obscure, no group too giant, and no system too fortified to be immune.

However these tales aren’t nearly loss. They’re about response. They present how organizations rebuild, how regulators catch up, and the way safety groups evolve, typically below immense strain.

There’s no silver bullet for stopping a breach. However there are patterns, warnings, and classes, and so they’re rising louder with each incident. Understanding how these breaches occurred is just the start. The true preparation lies in recognizing what they imply for the way forward for cybersecurity, privateness, and digital belief. 

The numbers behind information breaches inform a much bigger story. One in every of scale, frequency, and rising stakes. Listed here are the highest information breach statistics that ship key cybersecurity insights.