2014: Year of the Hack

2014 was a great year for so many things: Frozen mania, the iPhone 6, potato salad, Sharknado 2 and so much more. Unfortunately, a big trend this past year was hacking. With news of data leaks from large companies coming out every couple weeks, 2014 could definitely be known as the year of the hack. Here are five of the biggest security breaches of 2014.

Home Depot
In September, Home Depot was hit with a data breach that left 53 million people’s information exposed. Hackers used a third-party vendor’s login information to gain access to the company’s network. So far, the leak has cost the company more than $148 million, and more lawsuits are on the way.

Gmail
Google made the news this year when five million Gmail email addresses and passwords were leaked online. The information was said to have been stolen from other sites, where the addresses were used as log ins. Fortunately for Google, it was later discovered that less than two percent of the data was valid; most were years out of date.

eBay
Back in May, eBay informed the public that hackers had attacked their site and made out with 145 million customer usernames, encrypted email addresses and passwords. To make matters worse, the hack may have happened as far back as three months before they became aware of it. eBay contacted it’s users and suggested they change their passwords.

Target
Target was the victim of the largest data breach in US history when 70 million individuals’ personal information was stolen, including names, email, phone numbers and addresses. Target promised to refund the cost of any fraudulent charges arising from the theft and offered one year of free credit card monitoring/identity theft protection to all customers.

Sony
One of the biggest hacks this year is currently still in the fallout. Less than a month ago, Sony Pictures became the victim of a target hack by a group known as “Guardians of Peace.” This group of hackers stole and released films in production, as well as leaked company emails. The hack is thought to be in response to the film The Interview, in which two journalists are recruited to assassinate the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. Since the original hack, The Interview release have been cancelled after GOP has made threats to any showings of the film.

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