Top 5 recent cyber-attacks and how they relate to your business
Cyber-attacks can happen to any business and its not just large corporations that can suffer from data breaches. Small organisations are at an increased risk with limited resources as cyber attack can lead to data losses easily. However, the largest of corporations in the world have fallen prey to cyber attacks. Here are five of the recent cases.
1. JPMorgan Chase
The networks of JP Morgan Chase were taken over by a string of attacks that stole data from the investment giant. Contact and customer information of over 83 million households were stolen in a few minutes. However, JP Morgan Chase maintained that there has been no misuse of the information and nothing more than just phone numbers, email addresses and phone addresses were compromised. This came as a relief for many who panicked that their social security numbers and other sensitive information were given out.
2. Primera Blue Cross
Over 11 million users were affected in a cyber-attack planned out by a team of hackers. Interestingly, the breach was not even discovered for about 8 months. From social security numbers to bank account details amount of information stolen was huge, making it one of the most devastating cyber attacks.
3. Home Depot
The information of over 56 million payment cards were leaked and compromised in a comprehensive attack that lasted for 6 months without the organisation finding out. It is known to be one of the worst security breaches in recent times.
4. Anthem
Anthem is one of USA largest health insurers but that did not mean they could stop hackers from sneaking in. The personal information of over 10 million employees and customers including the chief executive of the company were leaked. Hackers tapped into approximately 80 million records of both old and current customers and also Anthem employees. Social security numbers, income data and contact information were stolen.
5. Staples
Staples is one of the largest office supply retailers in the USA and has information of hundreds of thousands of members. Unfortunately, hackers used sophisticated methods to break into the information of over 1.16 million credit cards making it one of the most dangerous attacks in recent times.
These are just a few of the high profile cyber attacks in recent times. The attack on Sony Pictures was apparently for instance, apparently led by North Korea led to the theft of salary lists, financial information, contracts, film budgets and even entire films. The movie Interview was cancelled. It led Sony Pictures to suffer major setbacks and huge losses. While hackers can gain access to information in spite of having the best security systems in place, constant monitoring would ensure that the data breach is discovered early and steps taken to protect customers information.
