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:tech data breaches hacks cybercrime

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Markets

Charted: What are Retail Investors Interested in Buying in 2023?

What key themes and strategies are retail investors looking at for the rest of 2023? Preview: AI is a popular choice.

Published

5 days ago

September 25, 2023

Pallavi Rao

A cropped bar chart showing the various options retail investors picked as part of their strategy for the second half of 2023.

Charted: Retail Investors’ Top Picks for 2023

U.S. retail investors, enticed by a brief pause in the interest rate cycle, came roaring back in the early summer. But what are their investment priorities for the second half of 2023?

We visualized the data from Public’s 2023 Retail Investor Report, which surveyed 1,005 retail investors on their platform, asking “which investment strategy or themes are you interested in as part of your overall investment strategy?”

Survey respondents ticked all the options that applied to them, thus their response percentages do not sum to 100%.

Where Are Retail Investors Putting Their Money?

By far the most popular strategy for retail investors is dividend investing with 50% of the respondents selecting it as something they’re interested in.

Dividends can help supplement incomes and come with tax benefits (especially for lower income investors or if the dividend is paid out into a tax-deferred account), and can be a popular choice during more inflationary times.

Investment Strategy	Percent of Respondents
Dividend Investing	50%
Artificial Intelligence	36%
Total Stock Market Index	36%
Renewable Energy	33%
Big Tech	31%
Treasuries (T-Bills)	31%
Electric Vehicles	27%
Large Cap	26%
Small Cap	24%
Emerging Markets	23%
Real Estate	23%
Gold & Precious Metals	23%
Mid Cap	19%
Inflation Protection	13%
Commodities	12%

Meanwhile, the hype around AI hasn’t faded, with 36% of the respondents saying they’d be interested in investing in the theme—including juggernaut chipmaker Nvidia. This is tied for second place with Total Stock Market Index investing.

Treasury Bills (30%) represent the safety anchoring of the portfolio but the ongoing climate crisis is also on investors’ minds with Renewable Energy (33%) and EVs (27%) scoring fairly high on the interest list.

Commodities and Inflation-Protection stocks on the other hand have fallen out of favor.

Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party…

Another interesting takeaway pulled from the survey is how conversations about prevailing companies—or the buzz around them—are influencing trades. The platform found that public investors in Mattel increased 6.6 times after the success of the ‘Barbie’ movie.

Bud Light also saw a 1.5x increase in retail investors, despite receiving negative attention from their fans after the company did a beer promotion campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Given the origin story of a large chunk of American retail investors revolves around GameStop and AMC, these insights aren’t new, but they do reveal a persisting trend.