The Most Infamous Hacks Throughout History

Hacking has been in the news for decades, and partly because of some major hacks. Here are a few of the most infamous hacks throughout history.

The internet may seem to have existed for a while, but it is relatively new, and consequently, vulnerable. Security was very bare bones in the beginning, and as time went on and things became more secure, hackers grew their abilities to exploit weaknesses. Read on to learn about some of the most infamous hacks throughout history.

Yahoo!

In 2013, years after Yahoo! was one of the biggest search engines in the world, over a billion accounts were compromised as hackers gained access to users’ private information. The following year, in 2014, another 500 million accounts were hacked. The most significant issue with these hacks is that Yahoo didn’t disclose that the hacks occurred until a few years later, in 2016. It was the largest hack of a single company in history. Since it happened, the company has paid over $30 million to settle charges of misleading investors regarding the nature of the hack.

The Citibank Hacks

One of the first big hacks that ever happened did not even occur on the internet. Instead, Russian programmer Vladimir Levin hacked into the Citibank telephone system and stole customer account information while discussing it with service reps. He electronically transferred $10 million to different accounts with this information, but the authorities eventually caught him.

Estonian Cyberwar

Even entire countries are susceptible to hacks. In 2007, Estonia was the victim of repeated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks for over three weeks. The hacks began small, targeting different political parties, but they quickly expanded to everything in the country. Soon it was schools, banks, news outlets, and media websites. The entire country was on the verge of collapse. Estonia was one of the most connected countries at the time, with nearly 97 percent of the country’s banking transactions taking place online. Some have claimed these attacks to be one of the first instances of cyberwarfare, something that could be as—if not more—disruptive than traditional warfare.

The most infamous hacks throughout history occurred a while ago, but that doesn’t mean the internet is any safer. It is more fragile than ever before, and you may be the biggest cybersecurity risk to your cloud and business. At the end of the day, you must be careful with your information to ensure it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.