Top Security Breaches and Hacking Attacks of 2014
Cybercriminals pose tremendous threat to internet users worldwide. The battle among the security agencies to provide high internet privacy to users and cybercriminals to breach the security measures is everlasting. Every now and then, you hear the news about hacking of some social media forum or a popular website. Here, we will discuss top security breaches and hacking attacks of 2014.
iCloud Leaks
Apple is renowned for its security and encryption. It failed to protect the users’ private pictures and data as the hackers breached into the iCloud servers. The hackers gained access to the sensitive photos of celebrities and posted them online for others to see. Apple was quick to react and give explanation that the attack was the result of master planning.
eBay
eBay is one of the largest online stores where you can buy virtually anything you think of. It disclosed interesting news in May 2014 that its servers were breached in one of the top hacking attempts of 2014. It claimed that the hackers had managed to sneak into its servers and also stole personal records of 233 million users.
Snapchat Nude Photos Leak
By default, Snapchat deletes your photos and videos. However, most of the users of Snapchat employed an Android and iPhone app called as SnapSave to save their photos and videos. The app uploaded all the content on its central server that was controlled by hackers. 13GB of data was compromised as a result. This event is termed as Snappening that leaked 90,000 private photos of people on a third party website.
Dropbox Accounts Hacked
The account details of nearly 7 million Dropbox users were hacked by an unknown group in October 2014. The hackers threatened to publish the photos and videos of users. A series of posts with plenty of usernames and passwords for Dropbox have been made to an anonymous information-sharing website, Pastebin.
Russian Hackers Steal 1.2 Billion Account Credentials of Email Servers
A group of Russian hackers managed to get access to 1.2 Billion accounts’ login credentials that include the famous servers like Gmail, Yandex, and Mail.Ru. According to a rough estimate, there are around 2.9 Billion internet users on the planet, which makes this hacking attempt one of the biggest of its kind. This hacking attempt led to the worldwide “change-your-password” campaign.
The investigation revealed that the Russian group of hackers contained only a dozen young boys in their 20s who managed to hack multiple websites in the massive hack attack.
P.F Chang’s
This is a popular chain restaurant that was targeted by hackers last month, resulting in compromise of customer payment notification. Chang’s didn’t mention specifically how many people were affected by this security breach. However, thousands of newly stolen credit and debit cards went up for sale online.
US Office of Personal Management
Chinese hackers breached into the servers of the United States Office of Personal Management. The hacking attempt was extremely sophisticated and planned. The awareness about the successful server penetration leaked some months later. The US government denied that the hacking attempt was successful. It assured the public that personal data hasn’t been compromised.
After reading the hacking stories of top security breaches and hacking attacks of 2014, you might feel a little insecure. Well, you are feeling right. Internet is not a safe place today and you must employ some sort of security measures for protecting your personal information, data, pictures, and identity.
