7 Security Breaches on Sites We Use Everyday

February 19, 2019
By: Bridget Wilson in the Cybersecurity & Compliance category.

Many sites we visit daily get hacked into by those who try to steal identities or credit card information or both. This causes severe issues with businesses who daily earn our trust, such as banks or hospitals, schools and regular apps we use for social purposes.

When those sites are compromised, we can sometimes lose trust and it can be devastating for everyone involved. Calls have to be made to banks, passwords need to be changed, sometimes the process can take several days and upwards of months or years.

Facebook

25 September 2018
50 million users affected

Hackers obtained information on users’ gender, date of birth, relationship statuses, location and even recent internet searches. All data that could be used in identity theft to answer personal security question quizzes on other platforms.

Concerns of privacy also rose as the realization to access third party applications that use Facebook as a login were at risk.

2012, and again in 2016
167 million users affected

Before 2012, LinkedIn was not using methods like “salted” or “hashing” to make passwords more difficult to obtain. Originally 6.5 million accounts were being reported as having been hacked.

Four years later in 2016, a hacker by the name of ‘Peace’ stated he had access to the information and was ready to sell the data with nearly 117 million cracked passwords.

For future protection, LinkedIn urged users to enable two-step verification for their accounts.

Target

November 2013
70 million users affected

During one of the most inconvenient times of the year—the December Holidays—Target got hit by a major cyber security breach.

Malware was installed on a customer service database affecting nearly 41 million customers and their private payment card information.

Target helped consumers who suffered the most losses by paying up to $10,000 per person.

EBay

Late February 2014
145 million users affected

Luckily no financial information was breached. However, passwords, names, and physical address were taken.

The height of this cyber security threat was the impact that it had on employees. Their log-in credentials were stolen and used to illegally access eBay’s corporate network.

JPMorgan Chase

June 2014
76 million households
7 small businesses

90 servers were compromised when hackers were able to penetrate a Chase employee’s personal work computer.

This particular case challenged the public’s perspective on cyber security. It was not Target or eBay, but rather the banking industry, packed with account numbers and social security numbers.

TicketFly

May 30, 2018
27 million affected

In this case, TicketFly was held at ransom. A hacker attempted to notify the site of a security flaw and asked for one bitcoin to remedy the site’s vulnerability of user information.

When the site did not respond to the concern—the hacker did—by releasing nearly 27 million user email addresses.

Houzz

Late December 2018
Users Affected: Unknown

Houzz is one of the newest victims of data breaching. Encrypted passwords, IP addresses, and ZIP codes are just a few of the concerns users are facing in this heist.

Users were ushered to reset their account passwords as hackers could attempt to use leaked usernames and passwords on other sites.