Verizon recently published the 2014 Data Breach Investigation Report, and more than 50 global organizations participated, representing 95 countries, 63,437 security incidents, and 1,367 confirmed data breaches. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies were breached, as well as Grocery Chains, Newspapers, government agencies, US Nuclear Research facilities, and everything in between. The Washington Post was breached twice in the same year. And the top five “Threat Actions” changed from 2012 to 2013. Below is a recap.
Top Five Threat Actions
[table “” not found /]2013 Security Breaches
- Jan: 1) Red October cyber-espionage targets government agencies and research institutions 2) QCF launches DDoS attacks on US financial service companies
- Feb: Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Microsoft encountered data breaches, thanks to iPHoneDev SDK
- March: 1) Evernote forces 50M users to change passwords 2) Korea endures massive cyber attack 3) CloudFlare hit with massive DDoS atack 4) Target breaks news on security breach
- April: 1) Schnucks US Grocery Chain suffers POS data breach 2) Associated Press Twitter account hacked
- May: 1) The Guardian and The Financial Twitter accounts hacked 2) Watering hole attack against US nuclear research labs 3) US Dept of Justice shuts down temporarily
- June: Raley’s US Grocery Chain reports payment system breach
- July: 1) Harbor Freight Tools with 445 stores and 200M customers breached 2) Viber, Tango and Daily Dot breached 3) five hackers indicted for breaching Heartland and Global Payments
- Aug: CNN, Washington Post, Time Magazine, SocialFlow, New York Times and New York Post Twitter accounts hijacked
- Sept: 1) Vodafone breached impacting 2M customers 2) Data stolen from Lexis-Nexis, Kroll and Dun & Bradstreet
- Oct: 1) Adobe breached impacting 38M accounts 2) Nordstrom breached
- Nov: BIPs, a bitcoin processor, was victim of one of the largest bitcoin heist
- Dec: Washington Post records second breach