2020 is a year that will always be remembered in the history of mankind for the catastrophic coronavirus pandemic that affected millions of people all over the world. While the world was in so much chaos, cybercriminals also found new ways to increase their activities, ranging from data breaches, network infiltrations, ransomware attacks, identity thefts, and a lot more. These cybercriminals made full use of the remote-working situation that was ensued because of global lockdowns.
Some of the major hacks of this year are as follows:
In January 2020, around 30 million consumer records were illegally accessed from Wawa’s massive card breach. These records contained their data, and the hackers sold all that data online.
In the same month, Microsoft also became a target of cybercrime when five of its servers that stored anonymized user data were exposed over the web without any protection or coverage.
In February, Estée Lauder reported that around 440 million of their internal records got exposed on the internet because of some middleware security failures.
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) that takes care of information technology for the White House had a data breach that resulted in compromising the cards of employees.
In March, T-Mobile became a target of a major hack when a hacker gained access to its employee email accounts. It severely compromised all the data belonging to customers and employees.
Another victim of cybercrime was the MCA Wizard app, which was linked with a database belonging to various financial companies. This database got breached and was made public over the internet with almost 425GB of sensitive documents all exposed.
April 2020 also saw some major hacks. 160,000 users of Nintendo became a target of a mass account hijacking by the NNID legacy login system.
Email. it, the Italian email provider became a target when the data of almost 600,000 of its users got breached and was sold on the Dark Web.
In May 2020, Blackbaud, the famous cloud service provider became a target of ransomware as some cybercriminals took control of its computer systems. The company had to pay a ransom amount to prevent the users’ data from getting exposed online.
44 million mobile users’ data got breached and stolen in Pakistan.
June 2020 saw the University of California becoming a target of cybercrime when their COVID-19 research got breached. The university had to pay a ransom of $1.14 million to the hackers to save their research.
NASA also became a target when the DopplePaymer ransomware gang claimed to access and steal the IT contractor’s networks at NASA.
In July, MGM Resorts were targeted when a hacker put an online sale of data belonging to 142 million MGM guests.
A portal hosting around 269 GB of files belonging to the US police departments got stolen and had to be closed down.
In August, 20 GB of extremely sensitive company data belonging to Intel was stolen and published online.
The clients of the Ritz, London became a victim of phishing scams when impostors posed as staff members.
In September, Iranian hackers faced charges for compromising the US satellites.
Around 1000 Belarus high-ranking police officers saw their data getting leaked online.
In October, The United Nations International Maritime Organization’s public systems got compromised due to a security breach.
Amazon charged one of its former managers for running a $1.4 million insider trading scam.
In November, a Russian hacker was imprisoned for running a botnet that stole around $100 million from the bank accounts of victims.
Home Depot faced a PoS malware attack that affected millions of its customers. The retailer had to pay $17.5 million in settlement money.
So, the whole year is full of cyberattacks. Let us hope that December proves to be a little different and no one faces any such trouble anywhere.
Photo: Thinkstock
Read next: Data Security Report highlights the world's biggest data breaches
Some of the major hacks of this year are as follows:
In January 2020, around 30 million consumer records were illegally accessed from Wawa’s massive card breach. These records contained their data, and the hackers sold all that data online.
In the same month, Microsoft also became a target of cybercrime when five of its servers that stored anonymized user data were exposed over the web without any protection or coverage.
In February, Estée Lauder reported that around 440 million of their internal records got exposed on the internet because of some middleware security failures.
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) that takes care of information technology for the White House had a data breach that resulted in compromising the cards of employees.
In March, T-Mobile became a target of a major hack when a hacker gained access to its employee email accounts. It severely compromised all the data belonging to customers and employees.
Another victim of cybercrime was the MCA Wizard app, which was linked with a database belonging to various financial companies. This database got breached and was made public over the internet with almost 425GB of sensitive documents all exposed.
April 2020 also saw some major hacks. 160,000 users of Nintendo became a target of a mass account hijacking by the NNID legacy login system.
Email. it, the Italian email provider became a target when the data of almost 600,000 of its users got breached and was sold on the Dark Web.
In May 2020, Blackbaud, the famous cloud service provider became a target of ransomware as some cybercriminals took control of its computer systems. The company had to pay a ransom amount to prevent the users’ data from getting exposed online.
44 million mobile users’ data got breached and stolen in Pakistan.
June 2020 saw the University of California becoming a target of cybercrime when their COVID-19 research got breached. The university had to pay a ransom of $1.14 million to the hackers to save their research.
NASA also became a target when the DopplePaymer ransomware gang claimed to access and steal the IT contractor’s networks at NASA.
In July, MGM Resorts were targeted when a hacker put an online sale of data belonging to 142 million MGM guests.
A portal hosting around 269 GB of files belonging to the US police departments got stolen and had to be closed down.
In August, 20 GB of extremely sensitive company data belonging to Intel was stolen and published online.
The clients of the Ritz, London became a victim of phishing scams when impostors posed as staff members.
In September, Iranian hackers faced charges for compromising the US satellites.
Around 1000 Belarus high-ranking police officers saw their data getting leaked online.
In October, The United Nations International Maritime Organization’s public systems got compromised due to a security breach.
Amazon charged one of its former managers for running a $1.4 million insider trading scam.
In November, a Russian hacker was imprisoned for running a botnet that stole around $100 million from the bank accounts of victims.
Home Depot faced a PoS malware attack that affected millions of its customers. The retailer had to pay $17.5 million in settlement money.
So, the whole year is full of cyberattacks. Let us hope that December proves to be a little different and no one faces any such trouble anywhere.
Photo: Thinkstock
Read next: Data Security Report highlights the world's biggest data breaches
