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10 Biggest Cyber Attacks in History

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Cyber attacks are on the rise. Whilst modern technology presents many conveniences and benefits, there are people who misuse it which can pose a threat to our privacy.

Cybercrimes often have a tremendous impact on companies and individuals. It is expected that the cost of cybercrimes may reach $10.5 trillion by 2025.

Let’s take a look at some of history’s biggest cyber attacks

1. The Melissa Virus

One of the earliest and biggest cyber threats was started by the Melissa Virus. In 1999, the Melissa Virus was unleashed by programmer David Lee Smith by sending users a file to be opened by Microsoft Word. The virus caused severe destruction to hundreds of companies, including Microsoft. It is estimated that repairing the affected systems cost around $80M.

2. NASA Cyber Attack

In 1999, 15 year old James Jonathan was able to hack and shutdown NASA’s computers for 21 DAYS! Around 1.7M software were downloaded during the attack, which cost the space giant around $41,000 in repairs.

3. The 2007 Estonia Cyber Attack

In April 2007, Estonia witnessed what is thought to be the first cyber attack on an entire county, during which about 58 Estonian websites went offline, including websites of governments, banks and media outlets.

4. A Cyber Attack on Sony’s PlayStation Network

A cyber attack on Sony’s PlayStation Network in April 2011 claimed the personal information of 77M users.

5. Adobe Cyber Attack

The cyber attack which was first thought to have breached the data of 2.9M users went on to compromise the personal data of up to 38M users! Adobe claims that only the passwords and credit card information of the first 2.9M were compromised, whereas the remaining 35.1M only suffered the loss of their passwords and IDs.

6. The 2014 Cyber Attack on Yahoo

In 2014, Yahoo witnessed one of the biggest cyber attacks of the year when 500M accounts were compromised. However, it is reported that basic information and passwords were stolen, whereas bank information was not.

7. Ukraine’s Power Grid Attack

In what was the first cyberattack on a power grid, the attack left around half of the homes in the Ivano-Frankivsk region in Ukraine without power in 2015 for a few hours.

8. 2017 WannaCry Reandomsware Cyber Attack

One of the biggest ransomware of all time took place in 2017, when around 200,000 computers were affected in more than 150 countries. This outbreak had a massive impact across several industries and had a global cost of about 6B pounds!

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9. A Cyber Attack on Marriott Hotels went unnoticed for years

A cyber attack was lurking in the shadows for quite awhile when Marriott acquired the Starwood Hotels group, and it did not come into light until 2018. However, by then the attacker continued to have access to personal information of guests. An estimated 339M guests have had their data compromised. This had led the UK’s data privacy watchdog to fine the Marriott Hotels 18.4M pounds.

10. The biggest password leak yet

It was reported earlier this June that a compilation of about 8.4b passwords were leaked. This by far is the biggest password leak and is referred to as RockYou2021 in reference to the 2009 breach of RockYou site that compromised around 32M accounts.

Cyber crimes will be here to stay. To prevent any cybercrimes happening to your business contact us today.

For more information on insuring your business or if you have more questions you’d like answered, contact us today for a chat about your insurance needs and goals.

General Advice Warning: This advice is general and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider whether the advice is appropriate for you and your personal circumstances. Before you make any decision about whether to acquire a certain product, you should obtain and read the relevant product disclosure statement.

Clear Insurance Pty Ltd. ABN. 41 601 916 689. AFSL No. 548953.

cyber cyber insurance cyber attack cyber breach

General Advice Warning: This advice is general and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider whether the advice is appropriate for you and your personal circumstances. Before you make any decision about whether to acquire a certain product, you should obtain and read the relevant product disclosure statement.

All information above has been provided by the author.

Lisa Carter, Clear Insurance, AFSL 548953

This article originally appeared on Clear Insurance In The News and has been published here with permission.