The advent of the internet was a turning point in modern history. It was the perfect tool for an increasingly globalized modern world, and it has now become an everyday necessity, like groceries. Unfortunately, everything comes at a price. The internet also brought a completely new type of security threat, one we still lack the tools to combat: cyberattacks.
Because we rely on products and services running on the World Wide Web, everything is now a potential target for various cyberattacks from anywhere in the world, which could easily escalate into a major disaster. Imagine the consequences of a massive nationwide power outage or a hostile remote takeover of national nuclear facilities.
While actual recorded attacks haven't yet reached this scale, they're not far behind. These 10 largest cyberattacks in history prove that they're becoming increasingly frequent and sophisticated, despite the best efforts of law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies worldwide.
10. Church of Scientology
We don't actually know what exactly the Church of Scientology is or what it does, but that's not the point here. Instead, we're here to focus on their cybersecurity infrastructure, which was seriously compromised back in 2008 by a new hacker group called Anonymous. This was in response to what they called censorship, as one of their videos about Tom Cruise was removed by the Church.
В revenge Hackers from around the world orchestrated a coordinated campaign to take down church-related websites, along with other methods of semi-digital sabotage, such as spamming their office fax machines with a barrage of messages. While unlikely to be lethal or have any real impact, it was the first attack Anonymous , which made headlines around the world. The hack itself mainly involved attacks denial of service« , which even today remain a popular and widely used method by hackers.
9. Teenage NASA hack
On the 21st day in In 1999 NASA systems were forced to shut down due to what initially appeared to be a major coordinated attack on national security. Thirteen systems were compromised, including temperature and humidity controls in living quarters at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The total damage amounted to more than $41,000 in equipment and labor costs.
The same hacker, known online as "c0mrade," was responsible for a parallel attack on the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency around the same time. They managed to crack the logins and passwords of 19 employees, using them to gain access to 10 military computers.
While this all sounds like a serious attack on the United States by a foreign power, it turned out to be just a bored teenager. Jonathan James was only 15 years old when he was taken into custody and sent to a correctional facility. institution in Alabama for assault. He was perhaps the youngest hacker to commit such a high-profile breach, which instantly made him popular in the burgeoning hacker community of the time.
8. KIIS-FM
KIIS-FM was a popular Los Angeles radio station back in 1990, known for its weekly "Win a Porsche by Friday" contest. The prize was a Porsche 944 S2, and all you had to do to win was be the 102nd caller. This was the golden age of contests, held exclusively on landlines across America, and you could find people all over Los Angeles using autodialers and other tricks to become the lucky winner.
While this sounds like a secure system—at least for 1990, when computers were still in their infancy—it was not. June 1, 1999 Kevin Poulsen , a 24-year-old college dropout at the time, gathered with several of his friends, waited for the 101st call, and began hacking and jamming all 25 phone lines before calling, making him the 102nd caller. Although he won the car, law enforcement soon discovered the hack.
Kevin was skilled at manipulating switching networks, and had previously been responsible for attacks on various telephone company systems, similar to the one used by KIIS-FM. Although he managed to remain on the run for some time after the hack, Kevin was eventually caught in April 1991 and sentenced to five years in prison. conclusions .
7. Sunrise
Solar Sunrise was the working title given to a large-scale, sophisticated attack on the Department of Defense in February 1998. The attackers gained complete control of more than 20 systems and used them to access sensitive information about institutions such as NASA, the US Air Force, MIT, and others. They also stole the usernames and passwords of hundreds of employees, and the attacks appeared to originate from all over the world.
It was initially assumed that the perpetrators were Iraqi intelligence officers, since Later That same year, US forces were preparing to bomb Iraq. The Deputy Secretary of Defense even named This is "the most organized and systematic attack the Pentagon has ever seen.".
After an extensive investigation involving multiple intelligence agencies, internet service providers, and senior military officials around the world, the attackers were identified as two teenagers from California and one from Israel.
6. I want to cry
The aptly named WannaCry virus infected over 230,000 Microsoft computers worldwide back in May 2017. It was ransomware — a type of malware that holds your computer hostage in exchange for something, usually cryptocurrency. In this case, the virus was able to block hundreds of thousands of users worldwide from accessing their personal files and other data, demanding a significant amount of Bitcoin in exchange. After the transaction is complete, the hackers send decryption keys to unlock the files.
It was like a digital pandemic and spread to hundreds of thousands of systems even before it was recognized as a single virus, although before To date, no specific hacker group has claimed responsibility for it. While the killswitch that stopped its spread was eventually discovered by a security researcher Marcus Hutchins , many users who refused to pay the ransom were never able to recover their files. The same attack allegedly was used against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd. in August 2018.
5. Sony PlayStation Network
Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN) and Qriocity—now Sony Entertainment Network—have beenattack In 2011, hackers stole the data of over 100 million users, including their names, addresses, birth dates, usernames, passwords, security questions, and other personal information. Although Sony denied that it contained credit card information, they still issued a statement urging customers to scan their cards.compromised just in case.
This is one of, if not the most It was the largest personal data breach in history, and we're still not entirely sure who did it. It was also a huge PR disaster for Sony, as it's also one of the largest repositories of credit card numbers in the US. The attack directly resulted in a complete overhaul of Sony's cybersecurity infrastructure, as it took over three weeks to restore everything and get the network up and running.
4. MafiaBoy
In February 2000 Several major digital retailers were hit by a massive denial-of-service attack. It targeted Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, CNN, and Dell, among others, all early internet-era startups. Needless to say, this caused widespread panic among Wall Street investors, as the successful attack proved they weren't as secure as they'd claimed.
It was actually quite impressive, especially since it was done by a 15-year-old. Michael Kals, a high school student at the time, lived in Quebec , Canada, first gained control of several university networks. He then used their combined computing power to launch major attacks, taking down all targeted websites within hours.
This was a high-profile case, as it prompted President Clinton to convene a high-level security meeting and drew widespread media attention to the rapidly emerging problem of cyberattacks. The attack itself, however, was not intended to cause actual harm, as it was carried out as a kind of ploy against other hacker groups. Michael was ultimately sentenced to eight months.imprisonment in a juvenile penal colony .
3. Dean
Distributed denial of service attacks or DDoS DDoS attacks aim to block users' access to a specific online service. This can be something as innocuous as replacing a common website with meme images, or something as serious as denying security personnel access to their country's military facilities. Fortunately, nothing like this has been attempted yet, although DDoS attacks are certainly becoming more serious and sophisticated over time.
The largest DDoS attack in history targeted Dyn, a major internet domain name service. It's like the internet's phone book, connecting IP addresses to website names and other locators behind the scenes. The attack brought down the websites of major internet organizations like Netflix, Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, CNN, and PayPal, as well as media outlets like The New York Times и Wall Street Journal .
The attack was eventually linked to three hackers , Josiah White, Dalton Norman and Paras Jha, who pleaded guilty in December 2017.
2. Heartland Payment Systems Inc.
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Heartland Payment Systems is a subsidiary of Global Payments, one of the largest payment systems in the United States. In 2008 It fell victim to what is now known as one of the most serious security breaches in history, when its payment system was hacked and the sensitive data, including credit card information, of tens of millions of customers was compromised. The true figure could also be much higher, as the exact scale of the attack remains unknown.
The hack was attributed to someone Albert Gonzalez , as he was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for it. However, it was too late, as the damage had already been done. The hack will cost the company approximately $140 million in compensation, plus payments Visa and American Express $63.5 million, plus an additional $26 million in legal fees.
1. Mt.Goks
Mt. Gox Mt. Gox was a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange. By 2013, it had already established itself as the largest exchange in the burgeoning industry, which was still in its early stages and susceptible to hacking and manipulation. By some estimates, over 701 trillion of all bitcoins traded worldwide passed through Mt. Gox at its peak, making it an ideal target for budding hackers.
Of course, the exchange was hacked in 2014 and more than 100,000 coins were stolen overnight. 850 000 Bitcoin. This wasn't even a very sophisticated attack, as the attackers simply used the order book to manipulate the price and execute fraudulent trades to accumulate as many Bitcoins as possible. Due to the lack of regulation or government oversight in the cryptocurrency industry, the attackers were never brought to justice, although over 200,000 Bitcoins were recovered over time. At the time of writing, the total value of the stolen coins is over $23 billion, making this the largest hack in history in terms of losses.