In a year where new GDPR laws came into effect, we have had plenty of instances where companies have shown they cannot keep our data, personal information and even bank details safe. Online security label manufacturer Seareach.co.uk who specialise in asset labels and asset tracking, collated some of the biggest data breaches of last year, month by month.
Speaking about the research, Stuart Jailler at Seareach commented:
“We hand over our personal information daily, whether that’s joining a new online service, logging into online banking or even shopping online, and we expect our personal information, our data to be kept safe and secure. However, many big businesses have shown time, and time again that they can’t keep this information safe and secure. With attacks from hackers and mishandled customer information, millions of people from around the world had their personal information breached in 2018.”
He added:
“There are different types of data breaches, these can be from companies’ websites being hacked to data being mishandled or sold on without consent to third parties. Some of the biggest companies worldwide have been hit, including Facebook, British Airways, Marriot Hotels and TicketMaster, as well as a slew of others. Will we see companies taking data security even more seriously in 2019, will customers start to lose faith and curtail what they do online, only time will tell.”
Biggest Data Breaches of 2018
Another year and more high-profile businesses and brands have been attacked by hackers. Can companies keep up and protect customer data? Search reviewed 2018’s biggest data hacks of the year, when they happened or when companies admitted they had occurred.
February
150 million MyFitnessPal app users had their details leaked in a data breach including usernames, email addresses and passwords.
March
Orbitz had 880,000 customers payment card details, stolen by a hacker, thanks to a security vulnerability in the travel site’s legacy booking system.
FIFA more than 3.4 terabytes of data and 70 million documents from FIFA, containing numerous allegations of corruption, was leaked to German magazine Der Spiegel by the Football Leaks organisation.
Cambridge Analytica harvested data (without user permission) from Facebook, more than 80 million people were affected by the data exposure.
April
Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s online customers may have had their personal information and credit card details exposed to a third party between April 26 and June 12.
May
Rail Europe, breach saw customer details including credit card numbers, expiration dates, and card verification codes, stolen over three months.
June
Over a million Adidas customers were affected by their data breach. The website was hacked with contact information, usernames, and hashed passwords stolen.
July
Timehop suffered a significant data breach on 7 July 2018 names, email addresses and phone numbers of 21 million users were accessed.
Ticketmaster suffered data breach which saw hackers operating a massive credit card skimming operation, via third-party code installed on e-commerce websites.
23,000 Fortnum and Mason customers details were accessed in a data breach, including addresses and contact phone numbers.
August
British Airways data breach hit 380,000 transactions through its website and mobile app. Personal and financial information was stolen.
September
90 million Facebook user accounts were exposed when hackers stole access tokens that they could then use to take over almost 50 million profiles.
November
Cathay Pacific admitted this month that they had suffered a significant data breach affecting up to 9.4 million passengers, in March.
Over 100 million Quora users had their emails, passwords and names taken. The breach occurred after unauthorised access by a malicious third party.
View our infographic below. For those looking to use the infographic, be sure to use seareach.co.uk as the source.
