2015 is almost over, and it's time to take a look back at the biggest security incidents that occurred during the past year.
Since most companies try to hide the true extent of security incidents, the research reveals a much smaller, or much larger, number than previously thought. Here are the biggest security incidents of this year
Hacking Team
In June, an unknown hacker breached the servers of Hacking Team, an Italian security vendor , and leaked its database, internal emails, and the source code of its GitHub spying toolkit. What made the Hacking Team incident even worse was that Adobe was slow to patch the many zero-day flaws found in Flash, and more and more users decided it was time to disable Flash in their browsers.
Ashley Madison
In July, a group of hackers calling themselves “The Impact Team” breached the servers of the online dating website Ashley Madison, stealing the site’s database, internal emails, and the source code of some internal applications. The data was eventually leaked online and the consequences were very serious, with some users’ extramarital affairs being revealed, while some even committed suicide.
Vtech
In late November, VTech, a Chinese company that makes and sells electronic learning toys, suffered a data breach in which attackers managed to steal the personal information of 4.8 million parents and 200,000 children, later revealed to be 6.7 million.
OPM
OPM, the US Office of Personnel Management, suffered a data breach in March, which was revealed in June, grew from an initial 4 million records to 18 million and then 21.5 million by the end of July, and, to make matters worse, in September, researchers announced that the fingerprints of 5.6 million government employees were stolen.
Juniper
The latest addition to this list is a hidden backdoor found in Juniper’s NetScreen firewall hardware running the ScreenOS operating system. During an internal audit, Juniper developers discovered what was labeled as “unauthorized code” within the ScreenOS code, which upon further investigation turned out to be a fully functional backdoor that allowed attackers to gain access to the device.
Gemalto
This breach didn’t happen in 2015, and it wasn’t actually a hack, but a botched attempt. According to Gemalto, the attackers were targeting the inventory of cryptographic security keys. These encryption keys are currently used to encrypt and secure mobile communications for 400 mobile and wireless carriers in 85 countries. If the keys were leaked to the NSA and GCHQ, you would be able to listen to everyone’s conversations and movements on the Internet.
LastPass
In June, LastPass, one of the most widely used and beloved password managers, announced a breach when unknown attackers managed to steal some email addresses, passwords, and hints for those passwords.
T-Mobile via Experian
T-Mobile wasn't hacked in this case, but Experian, a credit reporting company that handles data for some T-Mobile customers who wanted to take out loans to buy devices from T-Mobile stores, was. With 15 million records leaked and all the sensitive information a fraudster could want, this incident needs to be reported for the sheer numbers alone.
TalkTalk
And the award for “most hated company of the year” goes to TalkTalk, after they managed to lose 4 million user records in February, another 4 million records in October and 2.4 million records in August when one of their subsidiaries, Carphone Warehouse, also suffered a data breach. In total, TalkTalk lost 10.4 million user records in three separate security breaches this year alone.
CIA Director John Brennan
Three teenagers calling themselves CWA (Crackas With Attitude) managed to hack into the personal email of CIA Director John Brennan, in one of the most high-profile cases of social engineering that could serve as an example of INFOSEC training manuals. Even worse, the hackers also hacked into FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano, and his wife's email accounts, and even gained access to JABS (Joint Automated Booking System), an application used to record and manage the arrests of US citizens
