wildercb/PrivacyTextBooks1.2 · Datasets at Hugging Face

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armor was an external vendor, where the thieves were able to obtain
network credentials. From there, because of a poorly segmented network,
the cybercrooks were able to work their way around as if in a giant
playground.43
JP Morgan Chase was also breached, exposing 76 million records in “the
largest intrusion of an American bank to date.” Hackers broke in with stolen
login credentials from one employee, then exploited a neglected database
that hadn’t been upgraded to require two-factor authentication. This simple
upgrade could have stopped this debacle from happening, but it was
overlooked. JP Morgan Chase spent $250 million per year on security, but it
was felled by a small oversight.44
Sony Pictures was attacked in retaliation for its upcoming release of a
comedy about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Attackers backed by the
North Korean government broke in by stealing an administrator’s
credentials through a phishing scheme.45 On the morning of November 24,
2014, Sony employees turned on their computers to see a red skeleton and a
message threatening to release the data publicly.46 The hackers made good
on their threat, publicly posting private emails of Sony employees,
including emails by executives, some of whom made insulting comments
about celebrities and others.
According to a Symantec report on ransomware, “Between 2013 and
2014, there was a 250 percent increase in new crypto ransomware families
on the threat landscape.” As the Symantec report observes: “Never before
in the history of humankind have people across the world been subjected to
extortion on a massive scale as they are today.”47 The fact that so many
companies were being infiltrated led FBI director James Comey to state:
“There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those
who’ve been hacked . . . and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked.”48
The year 2015 earned the title of “the year of the data breach”—a title
that nearly every year has earned.49 One study noted: “In 2010, you had a
one in nine chance of becoming a victim of identity theft after your
financial or personal information was swiped. Today, your odds have
increased to one in three.”50
The health plan Anthem had a breach of 80 million patient records
involving very sensitive data. Hackers broke in when one employee clicked
on a phishing email.51 The breach was noted as the “largest healthcare
breach in history.”52 On the very same day that Anthem announced its
breach, Premera Blue Cross discovered it had been hacked, compromising
11 million records.53
Hackers also attacked Ashley Madison, a website for facilitating
extramarital affairs. They obtained 32 million records and posted them
online. Although some people had paid a fee to Ashley Madison to delete
all their data, the company hadn’t done so.54 Ashley Madison also used
weak encryption to store sensitive data. After the hackers posted the data
online, several of the people exposed committed suicide.55
Experian also announced a major breach involving 15 million people’s
Social Security Numbers and other personal data. Ironically, the breach was
announced at the beginning of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.56
In 2016, the total number of records compromised in recorded breaches
in all years surpassed 6 billion. Bloomberg News proclaimed that 2016 was
a “record year.”57 Mossack Fonesca, a Panamanian law firm, had a breach
that involved 11.5 million records of wealthy clients from many countries
who were seeking to evade taxes. The incident was dubbed the “Panama
Papers” breach.58
In one of the tardiest breach announcements in history, Yahoo
announced a series of breaches that occurred in 2013 and 2014 involving 3
billion records, making this the largest series of breaches in the history of
humankind. In 2018, the SEC fined Yahoo for covering up the breach for
several years, failing to inform investors, and not fully investigating the
breach. The fine is notable for being the SEC’s first fine for failing to
disclose a data breach, but the fine was just for $35 million, which is low
considering the egregiousness of Yahoo’s actions.59
The ransomware epidemic continued, prompting the FBI to issue a
warning and request to be informed about new ransomware infections.60
Ransomware attacks averaged 4,000 per day. The year began with a 300
percent increase in daily ransomware attacks compared to 2015.61 Where
ransomware attacks previously targeted mainly smaller businesses and
demanded small ransoms of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, the
criminals began to shift to targeting larger organizations and demanding
higher ransoms. They also attacked hospitals. Hollywood Presbyterian
Medical Center paid attackers $17,000 in bitcoin in February 2016. By
2020, ransom demands on hospitals or healthcare entities would top $1
million.62
While politically motivated hacks—“hacktivism”—gained prominence
in 2011 with the growth of Anonymous, politically motivated hacks in 2016
targeted major parties. Prominent members of the Democratic Party were
hacked in 2016, including John Podesta, chairman of Hilary Clinton’s
presidential campaign. Sponsored by the Russian government, hackers sent
phishing emails to more than 100 members of Clinton’s campaign. When
the hackers had trouble infiltrating official campaign email accounts, the
hackers turned to targeting people through their personal email accounts,
which they used to break in.63 The hacked emails were subsequently
provided to WikiLeaks, which published 20,000 of the hacked emails.
In 2017, the story was more of the same. As the Online Trust Alliance
noted: “Surprising no one, 2017 marked another ‘worst year ever’ in
personal data breaches and cyber incidents around the world.”64 The total
all-time number of breaches reported surpassed 5,000 and involved more
than 7.8 billion records compromised.65 There are 7.6 billion people on
Earth, so 2017 saw the total number of compromised records surpass the
total world population.
Equifax had an enormous breach involving personal data of about 147
million people. The breach was caused by hackers who broke in through an
unpatched software vulnerability.66 Hackers stole data of 50 million riders
and 7 million drivers from Uber. Uber’s CEO paid the hackers $100,000 to
keep the incident secret, a cover-up that resulted in his ouster and in
criminal charges against the chief security officer.67
Bloomberg News proclaimed 2018 to be the “year of the data breach.”68
Alabama became the final U.S. state to pass a breach notification law.69 The
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect, resulting in
data protection authorities all over Europe being overwhelmed with

armor was an external vendor, where the thieves were able to obtain

network credentials. From there, because of a poorly segmented network,

the cybercrooks were able to work their way around as if in a giant

playground.43

JP Morgan Chase was also breached, exposing 76 million records in “the

largest intrusion of an American bank to date.” Hackers broke in with stolen

login credentials from one employee, then exploited a neglected database

that hadn’t been upgraded to require two-factor authentication. This simple

upgrade could have stopped this debacle from happening, but it was

overlooked. JP Morgan Chase spent $250 million per year on security, but it

was felled by a small oversight.44

Sony Pictures was attacked in retaliation for its upcoming release of a

comedy about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Attackers backed by the

North Korean government broke in by stealing an administrator’s

credentials through a phishing scheme.45 On the morning of November 24,

2014, Sony employees turned on their computers to see a red skeleton and a

message threatening to release the data publicly.46 The hackers made good

on their threat, publicly posting private emails of Sony employees,

including emails by executives, some of whom made insulting comments

about celebrities and others.

According to a Symantec report on ransomware, “Between 2013 and

2014, there was a 250 percent increase in new crypto ransomware families

on the threat landscape.” As the Symantec report observes: “Never before

in the history of humankind have people across the world been subjected to

extortion on a massive scale as they are today.”47 The fact that so many

companies were being infiltrated led FBI director James Comey to state:

“There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those

who’ve been hacked . . . and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked.”48

The year 2015 earned the title of “the year of the data breach”—a title

that nearly every year has earned.49 One study noted: “In 2010, you had a

one in nine chance of becoming a victim of identity theft after your

financial or personal information was swiped. Today, your odds have

increased to one in three.”50

The health plan Anthem had a breach of 80 million patient records

involving very sensitive data. Hackers broke in when one employee clicked

on a phishing email.51 The breach was noted as the “largest healthcare

breach in history.”52 On the very same day that Anthem announced its

breach, Premera Blue Cross discovered it had been hacked, compromising

11 million records.53

Hackers also attacked Ashley Madison, a website for facilitating

extramarital affairs. They obtained 32 million records and posted them

online. Although some people had paid a fee to Ashley Madison to delete

all their data, the company hadn’t done so.54 Ashley Madison also used

weak encryption to store sensitive data. After the hackers posted the data

online, several of the people exposed committed suicide.55

Experian also announced a major breach involving 15 million people’s

Social Security Numbers and other personal data. Ironically, the breach was

announced at the beginning of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.56

In 2016, the total number of records compromised in recorded breaches

in all years surpassed 6 billion. Bloomberg News proclaimed that 2016 was

a “record year.”57 Mossack Fonesca, a Panamanian law firm, had a breach

that involved 11.5 million records of wealthy clients from many countries

who were seeking to evade taxes. The incident was dubbed the “Panama

Papers” breach.58

In one of the tardiest breach announcements in history, Yahoo

announced a series of breaches that occurred in 2013 and 2014 involving 3

billion records, making this the largest series of breaches in the history of

humankind. In 2018, the SEC fined Yahoo for covering up the breach for

several years, failing to inform investors, and not fully investigating the

breach. The fine is notable for being the SEC’s first fine for failing to

disclose a data breach, but the fine was just for $35 million, which is low

considering the egregiousness of Yahoo’s actions.59

The ransomware epidemic continued, prompting the FBI to issue a

warning and request to be informed about new ransomware infections.60

Ransomware attacks averaged 4,000 per day. The year began with a 300

percent increase in daily ransomware attacks compared to 2015.61 Where

ransomware attacks previously targeted mainly smaller businesses and

demanded small ransoms of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, the

criminals began to shift to targeting larger organizations and demanding

higher ransoms. They also attacked hospitals. Hollywood Presbyterian

Medical Center paid attackers $17,000 in bitcoin in February 2016. By

2020, ransom demands on hospitals or healthcare entities would top $1

million.62

While politically motivated hacks—“hacktivism”—gained prominence

in 2011 with the growth of Anonymous, politically motivated hacks in 2016

targeted major parties. Prominent members of the Democratic Party were

hacked in 2016, including John Podesta, chairman of Hilary Clinton’s

presidential campaign. Sponsored by the Russian government, hackers sent

phishing emails to more than 100 members of Clinton’s campaign. When

the hackers had trouble infiltrating official campaign email accounts, the

hackers turned to targeting people through their personal email accounts,

which they used to break in.63 The hacked emails were subsequently

provided to WikiLeaks, which published 20,000 of the hacked emails.

In 2017, the story was more of the same. As the Online Trust Alliance

noted: “Surprising no one, 2017 marked another ‘worst year ever’ in

personal data breaches and cyber incidents around the world.”64 The total

all-time number of breaches reported surpassed 5,000 and involved more

than 7.8 billion records compromised.65 There are 7.6 billion people on

Earth, so 2017 saw the total number of compromised records surpass the

total world population.

Equifax had an enormous breach involving personal data of about 147

million people. The breach was caused by hackers who broke in through an

unpatched software vulnerability.66 Hackers stole data of 50 million riders

and 7 million drivers from Uber. Uber’s CEO paid the hackers $100,000 to

keep the incident secret, a cover-up that resulted in his ouster and in

criminal charges against the chief security officer.67

Bloomberg News proclaimed 2018 to be the “year of the data breach.”68

Alabama became the final U.S. state to pass a breach notification law.69 The

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect, resulting in

data protection authorities all over Europe being overwhelmed with