We all have been affected by hack attacks one way or the another during our experience in the digital world. Whether it is in the form of slow internet or an unfortunate case of direct data/identity theft; we all know the frustration, helplessness and fear one goes through after such an attack.
Below is the list of some of the wackiest and horrific hack attacks the cyber world has seen till date! Buckle up, because this might bring back a bad memory or two!
1) Stuxnet (2010)
The Stuxnet worm is claimed to be world’s first digital weapon. The difference being that rather than simply hijacking targeted computers and snooping around in them, its purpose was to physically destroy the equipment controlled by the computers. The worm was directed at Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, which caused the fast-spinning centrifuges to rotate uncontrollably and tear themselves apart. This weapon wrecked intense destruction, so much so that it ruined almost one-fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.
2) TalkTalk (2015)
Shortly after the Ashley Madison hack which released the names of hundreds of “secret lovers”, the website of phone and broadband company TalkTalk was breached by the cyber criminals. They were successful in getting hold of the names, postal addresses, emails, cell numbers and bank details of nearly 157,000 customers; wrecking all sorts of havoc and panic.
3) Sony’s Playstation Network (2011)
The details of around 100 million user accounts stored in the database of Sony were stolen in a widespread attack. These included bank account numbers, names, account names and addresses. A weakness in Sony’s network was brutally punished by the hackers and a numerous distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was launched, which inundated the network with an overload of information requests. Sony was fined £250,000 by the British authority for failing to protect users’ personal details.
4) eBay (2014)
In 2014 eBay asked all of its 145m active users to change their passwords. This was done because in a hack attack the hackers managed to steal the names, emails, postal addresses, phone numbers and DOBs of its customers. It was such a big attack that people feared that their details could be used to access other online accounts, rendering them prone to identity theft. In a messed up attempt at redemption, Ebay tried to hide the losses. And by the time the company announced the breach the data had already been in the hands of hackers for three months.
5) Spamhaus DDOS (2013)
A Dutch web-hosting company called CyberBunker deliberately caused disruption and ultimately a global slowdown of the internet after Spamhaus, which is a spam-fighting group based in Geneva added CyberBunker to a blacklist as it was accused of sending spam to the email users. Users and organizers of Cyberbunker retaliated and responded with a huge DDOS (denial of service) attack. It was such a powerful move that at one point 300 billion bits per second were being sent by a network of computers. This makes it the biggest attack ever till date.
6) Google China (2009)
Google set up its Chinese domain www.google.cn in 2006, which stated to operate under the country’s strict policies. Three years later in December hackers managed to access Google’s corporate servers and stole its intellectual property. Further investigations revealed that gmail accounts (email service provided by Google) across China, America and some parts of Europe had been hacked on a regular basis due to a weaknesses in Microsoft browser Internet Explorer.
7) Federal Bureau of Investigation (2016)
This one is fresh, but it was as revealing and damaging as any other attack. A hacker managed to snoop around the Department of Justice’s website and as a result names, email addresses, locations and job titles of 30,000 US Government employees, including 1,797 special agents and a task force deputy director were leaked. This caused great hysteria and confusion, and has put website and database security all over the globe in doubt.
Do you have any other hack attacks to narrate? Comment below!
