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Since the advent of the web, we have heard of several cyber attacks and deliberate exploitation of computer networks that has affect millions of people, organizations, and businesses resulting to disruptive consequences such as classified or confidential data/information compromise, loss of heavy funds and even customer base.

In this blog post, the writer wish to list and analyze six of the most embarrassing and high profile hacks in recent time.

1. ASHLEY MADISON HACK/DATA BREACH

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Founder:Darren Morgenstern
Founded: 2002
Slogan: Life is short. Have an affair.
Users: 47million, 53 Countries
Date Hacked: 15th July 2015
Hackers: The Impact Team

Ashley Madison,is a Canada-based online dating service and social networking service marketed to people who are married or in committed relationships. The Ashley Madison Agency is the world's largest online Social Networking Community of its kind that caters to people who are already in relationships but still want to date.

The Impact Team announced the attack on 15 July 2015 and threatened to expose all of its customer data including emails, names, home addresses, sexual fantasies and credit card information and threatened to post all the data online if Ashley Madison and fellow Avid Life Media site were not permanently closed.

By July 22, the first names of customers were released by hackers, with all of the user data released on August 18, 2015. More data (including some of the CEO's emails) was released on August 20, 2015. The release included data from customers who had earlier paid a $19 fee to Ashley Madison to allegedly have their data deleted.

On August 28, 2015, Noel Biderman agreed to step down as chief executive officer of Avid Life Media Inc. A statement released by the firm said his departure was "in the best interest of the company".


2. PANAMA PAPERS (MOSSACK FONSECA) DATA LEAK

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Size of Data: 2.6 Terabyte
No. of Document: 11,500,000
No. of Companies:214,488
No. of Clients: 14,153
Date Leaked: 15th April 2016
Span of Data: 1977-2016
Hacker: John Doe (Anonymous)


The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The leaked documents were created by Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca; some date back to the 1970s.

In 2014, a man contacted Bastian Obermayer, a reporter working for German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung with the message "Hello. My name is John Doe. Interested in data?" When Obermayer answered in the affirmative, Doe continued, saying, "My life is in danger. No meeting, ever. I want you to report on the material and to make these crimes public." Doe then proceeded to transfer roughly 11.5 million documents from the records of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The leaked documents illustrate how wealthy individuals and public officials are able to keep personal financial information private. While offshore business entities are often not illegal, reporters found that some of the Mossack Fonseca shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.

John Doe is the pseudonym used by the whistleblower in the 2016 Panama Papers leak. On May 5, 2016, John Doe published a statement The Revolution Will Be Digitised, Doe explained he made the files from Mossack Fonseca public to underline growing income inequality and financial corruption globally. The whistleblower has offered to help prosecutors build their cases, on condition of legal protection.


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3. US CENTRAL COMMAND Twitter Hack

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Hackers claiming links to the Islamic State have hijacked several social media accounts belonging to U.S. military's Central Command. The hacking group, which calls itself "CyberCaliphate," is tweeting out what the group claims are U.S. military PowerPoints and data on retired Army personnel — seemingly sensitive files that have no business being publicly aired. The images are meant to show that the hackers have penetrated the Pentagon's network. But the chances of this actually having happened appear rather slim. Here's why.

Much of the information being shared by Centcom's hijacked Twitter feed is publicly available from other sources and appears to be non-classified information. This is important because the hackers clearly want to make it seem as though they've successfully pulled off a major data breach.

4. TALK TALK Data Breach

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TalkTalk Telecom Group plc is a company which provides pay television, telecommunications, Internet access, and mobile network services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 2003 as a subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse and was demerged as a standalone company in March 2010. Its headquarters are in London.

A massive cyber attack against ISP TalkTalk saw 150,000 customer details swiped in October 2015, and now the financial toll is known too; the hack cost the company £60 million and lost it 95,000 customers, it has admitted in its financial results.

Financial results from TalkTalk show the company suffered a £15m trading impact and extra "exceptional" costs of £40 to £45m during the third quarter of 2015. The company's stats say that 95,000 of the 101,000 subscribers it lost during three months were because of the hack.

The hack which was originally described as "significant", then "much more limited", saw 157,000 customers lose data to hackers, though not information which on its own could be used to commit severe fraud.
Several arrests surrounding the hack have been made and the police investigation is continuing.

Of those who had their personal data stolen there were 15,656 full bank account number and sort codes accessed. In addition 28,000 customers has their obscured credit and debit card number accessed. These card details were "orphaned" from customer data and according to the broadband provider could not be identified.

Previously TalkTalk said the hack had "one-off" costs of £35m for the company. The initial costs were in response to the incident, extra loads being put on the call centres, and IT costs.

Trying to look on the bright side of the quarterly results, company boss Dido Harding said 500,000 of the remaining customers decided to take a free upgrade, which was offered after the attack. And consideration is higher now than it was before the incident," Harding said.

While the hack had an obvious impact on the company's finances and reputation the overall revenue for the company rose 1.8 per cent based on the same quarter in the previous 12 months. The company's shares rose 8.5 percent after the announcement, even as overall sales figures were not disclosed.

I dey tellz u...

5. SONY PICTURES Hack

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On November 24, 2014, a hacker group which identified itself by the name "Guardians of Peace"(GOP) leaked a release of confidential data from the film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The data included personal information about Sony Pictures employees and their families, e-mails between employees, information about executive salaries at the company, copies of then-unreleased Sony films, and other information.

In December 2014, the GOP group demanded that Sony pull its film The Interview, a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and threatened terrorist attacks at cinemas screening the film.

After major U.S. cinema chains opted not to screen the film in response to these threats, Sony elected to cancel the film's formal premiere and mainstream release, opting to skip directly to a digital release followed by a limited theatrical release the next day.

United States intelligence officials, after evaluating the software, techniques, and network sources used in the hack, alleged that the attack was sponsored by North Korea. North Korea has denied all responsibility.

6. EBAY Hack

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EBay is an American multinational corporation and e-commerce company, providing consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales services via the Internet. It is headquartered in San Jose, California. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble.

Today it is a multibillion-dollar business with operations localized in over 30 countries.

EBay initially thought that user data was safe following the security breach. As it turns out, that wasn’t the case at all; as Reuters noted in a report, eBay has now confirmed that personal data belonging to all 145 million of its users was accessed and compromised in the attack, making it one of the biggest breaches of all time.

Reuters says that eBay initially thought all user data was safe from attackers in the breach, but an eBay executive confirmed that wasn’t the case while speaking with Reuters in what were the company’s first public comments from a top exec since the breach. “For a very long period of time we did not believe that there was any eBay customer data compromised,” eBay global marketplaces chief Devin Wenig told the news organization.

Once the company learned that data was compromised, the executive says eBay moved quickly to disclose the breach. According to Wenig, email addresses and encrypted passwords for all 145 million eBay users were compromised.

It is unclear if or when hackers will be able to break the encryption protecting the passwords, but users should obviously change their passwords anyway as a precaution. Wenig said “millions” of eBay users have already changed their passwords, though he failed to elaborate. The executive also said that eBay is taking measures to protect its network in order to ensure that a similar breach does not happen again in the future.

Article credit: ikewebb dot com

Luvly

No 2, really touched high profiled men.

Flexherbal:
No 2, really touched high profiled men.

Yea.. Some analyst presumed the hack was highly political and aimed towards tarnishing the image of one of the world's most powerful man 'Vladimir Putin' the renowned Russian president.

Other sources believed its a US sponsored hack

Like the sound of that buh... they would need a more secured Data security n a strong AI system that would anticipate malicious Attacks...

What happend to nairaland hack

pythonkid:
What happend to nairaland hack

Of 2014 ryt?

Hahaha! Seun no tell d cost nah.. And i guess its one does newbie trying out some SQL shiit.

Attack was dumb to be rated 'high-profile'....

If d attacker was a techy, we for know..

Ewizard:


Of 2014 ryt?

Hahaha! Seun no tell d cost nah.. And i guess its one does newbie trying out some SQL shiit.

Attack was dumb to be rated 'high-profile'....

If d attacker was a techy, we for know..

Brother it's a hack and the method is probably still unknown even if it's SQL injection.. It's still have Deep methods

pythonkid:

Brother it's a hack and the method is probably still unknown even if it's SQL injection.. It's still have Deep methods

okay brof.. u made your point!

Okay

all said and done...




God bless that panama hacker.

Purpletee:
all said and done...




God bless that panama hacker.

Lol.. He deserves two medals, one for d hack.. and anoother in case he loses d 1st one