Headline-making news in information security, cyber security, privacy, and AI, from 2010 to today.
A hack of toymaker VTech’s online services exposed around 4.8 million parent accounts and 6.3 million children’s profiles, including photos and chat logs.
UK telecoms provider TalkTalk revealed a cyber attack that exposed personal data of nearly 157,000 customers, including around 15,600 bank account numbers and sort codes.
Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek showed they could control a Jeep Cherokee over the internet, prompting Fiat Chrysler to recall around 1.4 million vehicles.
Hackers calling themselves the Impact Team breach the dating site’s owner and later publish user data, prompting extortion scams and a joint Canadian and Australian privacy investigation.
Around 400GB of internal files from the Italian spyware vendor are posted online, exposing client lists, source code, and previously unknown zero-day exploits.
OPM reveals a cyber intrusion affecting millions of federal employees, later found to include background-check files on 21.5 million people and 5.6 million fingerprints.
Lenovo is criticised after preloaded Superfish adware was found intercepting encrypted web traffic using a root certificate with an easily cracked key.
Kaspersky Lab says a criminal group used phishing and bank-grade malware to steal from around 100 financial institutions, with total losses possibly reaching US$1bn.
US health insurer Anthem disclosed a cyber attack exposing names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of nearly 79 million people.
Hackers calling themselves the Guardians of Peace wiped computers and leaked data at Sony Pictures; the FBI blamed North Korea.
JPMorgan Chase disclosed that a cyber attack had exposed contact details for 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.
A decades-old flaw in the Bash command shell allowed attackers to run code remotely on Linux, Unix, and Mac systems and many devices.