Technology
The Largest Hacks and Data Breaches in World History
The Largest Hacks and Data Breaches in World History
View the awesome interactive version of this infographic at Information is Beautiful.
There has always been a fascination with the hacker – it is because the information era gives one person acting alone the capability to breach the security of the biggest corporations, banks, governments, or even celebrities. Movies such as War Games and Hackers brought the hacker to pop culture as far back as 1983, but we haven’t heard too much about hackers and the theft of data in the news until more recently.
It was finally in 2004 that it was brought to the forefront. A former America Online software engineer stole 92 million screen names and email addresses and sold them to spammers. This led to 7 billion unsolicited emails. However, data theft and hacks would continue to get much more frequent, and much more malevolent. Even stalwarts such as the US Military, AT&T, Ebay, Adobe, and Target would be affected.
Within the last year, a string of high profile cases have made waves. The Sony Pictures hack took over 100 terabytes of data, including unreleased films and scripts, sensitive business documents and emails, and social security numbers. Before that, malware installed on cash register systems across 2,200 Home Depot stores syphoned credit card details of up to 56 million customers. Even America’s biggest banks are not hack proof – criminals gained highest level administrative access to JP Morgan Chase’s most sensitive servers, and stole account information such as email addresses, phone numbers, names, and more.
The above infographic is accurate up to early February with the biggest hacks and breaches (by # of records stolen).
Technology
Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs
Nearly 800,000 AI jobs were posted in the U.S. throughout 2022. View this graphic to see a breakdown by state.

Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs
Much ink has been spilled over fears that artificial intelligence (AI) will eliminate jobs in the economy. While some of those fears may be well-founded, red-hot interest in AI innovation is creating new jobs as well.
This graphic visualizes data from Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, which shows how many AI-related jobs were posted in each state throughout 2022.
In total there were 795,624 AI jobs posted throughout the year, of which 469,925 (59%) were in the top 10. The full tally is included in the table below.
Rank | State | Number of job postings | % of total |
---|---|---|---|
1 | California | 142,154 | 17.9% |
2 | Texas | 66,624 | 8.4% |
3 | New York | 43,899 | 5.5% |
4 | Massachusetts | 34,603 | 4.3% |
5 | Virginia | 34,221 | 4.3% |
6 | Florida | 33,585 | 4.2% |
7 | Illinois | 31,569 | 4.0% |
8 | Washington | 31,284 | 3.9% |
9 | Georgia | 26,620 | 3.3% |
10 | Michigan | 25,366 | 3.2% |
11 | North Carolina | 23,854 | 3.0% |
12 | New Jersey | 23,447 | 2.9% |
13 | Colorado | 20,421 | 2.6% |
14 | Pennsylvania | 20,397 | 2.6% |
15 | Arizona | 19,514 | 2.5% |
16 | Ohio | 19,208 | 2.4% |
17 | Maryland | 16,769 | 2.1% |
18 | Minnesota | 11,808 | 1.5% |
19 | Tennessee | 11,173 | 1.4% |
20 | Missouri | 10,990 | 1.4% |
21 | Oregon | 10,811 | 1.4% |
22 | Washington, D.C. | 9,606 | 1.2% |
23 | Indiana | 9,247 | 1.2% |
24 | Connecticut | 8,960 | 1.1% |
25 | Wisconsin | 8,879 | 1.1% |
26 | Alabama | 7,866 | 1.0% |
27 | Kansas | 7,683 | 1.0% |
28 | Arkansas | 7,247 | 0.9% |
29 | Utah | 6,885 | 0.9% |
30 | Nevada | 6,813 | 0.9% |
31 | Idaho | 6,109 | 0.8% |
32 | Oklahoma | 5,719 | 0.7% |
33 | Iowa | 5,670 | 0.7% |
34 | South Carolina | 4,928 | 0.6% |
35 | Louisiana | 4,806 | 0.6% |
36 | Kentucky | 4,536 | 0.6% |
37 | Nebraska | 4,032 | 0.5% |
38 | Delaware | 3,503 | 0.4% |
39 | New Mexico | 3,357 | 0.4% |
40 | Rhode Island | 2,965 | 0.4% |
41 | New Hampshire | 2,719 | 0.3% |
42 | Hawaii | 2,550 | 0.3% |
43 | Mississippi | 2,548 | 0.3% |
44 | Maine | 2,227 | 0.3% |
45 | South Dakota | 2,195 | 0.3% |
46 | Vermont | 1,571 | 0.2% |
47 | North Dakota | 1,227 | 0.2% |
48 | Alaska | 970 | 0.1% |
49 | West Virginia | 887 | 0.1% |
50 | Montana | 833 | 0.1% |
51 | Wyoming | 769 | 0.1% |
The following chart adds some context to these numbers. It shows how the percentage of AI job postings in some of the top states has changed since 2010.
We can see that California quickly became the primary destination for AI jobs in the early 2010s, presumably as Silicon Valley companies began developing the technology.
California’s share has since declined, with a significant number of jobs seemingly moving to Texas. In fact, many tech companies are relocating to Texas to avoid California’s relatively higher taxes and cost of living.
The 10 Most In-Demand Specialized Skills
Lightcast also captured the top 10 specialized skills that were required for AI-related jobs. These are listed in the table below.
Skill | Frequency (number of postings) | Frequency (% of postings) |
---|---|---|
Python | 296,662 | 37% |
Computer Science | 260,333 | 33% |
SQL | 185,807 | 23% |
Data Analysis | 159,801 | 20% |
Data Science | 157,855 | 20% |
Amazon Web Services | 155,615 | 19% |
Agile Methodology | 152,965 | 19% |
Automation | 138,791 | 17% |
Java | 133,856 | 17% |
Software Engineering | 133,286 | 17% |
If you’re interested in a career that focuses on AI, becoming proficient in Python is likely to be a good first step.
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