Technology

The 15 Biggest Data Breaches in the Last 15 Years

Published

4 years ago

June 27, 2019

Jeff Desjardins

There’s no doubt that data breaches are a primary concern for people on the technological side of any modern business.

However, it’s increasingly the case that C-suite executives are catching wind of the potential business ramifications that these breaches can trigger.

In 2013, for example, the hacking of Yahoo not only compromised three billion email accounts – it also nearly jeopardized Verizon’s bid to acquire the company for $4.8 billion. At the end of the day, experts say that the breach knocked $350 million off of the sale price of Yahoo.

Counting Down the Breaches

Today’s infographic comes to us from Hosting Tribunal, and it highlights the biggest data breaches over the last 15 years.

The 15 Biggest Data Breaches in the Last 15 Years

Did you know that a whopping 14,717,618,286 records have been stolen since 2013?

It’s part of a much larger problem, and some experts anticipate that by 2021 the cost of cybercrime to the global economy will eclipse $6 trillion – a potential impact that would even supersede the size of the current Japanese economy ($4.9 trillion).

The 15 Biggest Data Breaches

Here are the most notable breaches that have occurred over the last 15 years, in ascending chronological order:

Year	Company	Impact
2004	AOL	92 million screen names and email addresses stolen
2013	Yahoo	All 3 billion accounts compromised
2013	Target	110 million compromised accounts, incl. 40 million payment credentials
2014	eBay	145 million compromised accounts
2015	Anthem Inc	80 million company records were hacked, including Social Security numbers
2016	LinkedIn	117 million emails and passwords leaked
2016	MySpace	360 million compromised accounts
2016	Three	133,827 compromised accounts, including payment methods
2017	Equifax	143 million accounts exposed, including 209k credit card numbers
2016	Uber	57 million compromised accounts
2018	Marriott	500 million compromised accounts
2018	Cathay Pacific	9.4 million compromised accounts, including 860k passport numbers
2018	Facebook	50 million compromised accounts
2018	Quora	100 million compromised accounts
2018	Blank Media	7.6 million compromised accounts

Most of these breaches led to millions, or even billions, of records being compromised.

And while the motives behind cyberattacks can vary from case to case, the business impact of hacks at this scale should make any executive tremble.

Related Topics:cybercrime tech data breaches hacks

Up Next

The Impressive Stats Behind Amazon’s Dominance of the Cloud

Don't Miss

A Visual History of the Largest Companies by Market Cap (1999-Today)

Click for Comments

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.

Published

4 days ago

May 26, 2023

Marcus Lu

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%