If you follow the news at all, you are probably well aware many big companies have experienced some major issues with cyber attacks in the last few years. And if you own a small to medium business, you can look at these circumstances and realize anyone is unnervingly close to the unthinkable—a cyber attack that compromises valuable data.
In a recent article by Stephan Buys, Buys compiles a list of some of these corporations so we can learn from their situations and have an IT recovery plan in place for our own businesses.
- Blue Cross Blue Shield: This medical insurance company recently suffered from cyber attacks that compromised private information of over 1 million customers. Although social security numbers and financial information stayed safe, hackers still got names, dates of birth, other account information.
- Sony: Just a few years ago, hackers got into the Sony database and stole email addresses of employees and movies that hadn’t been released yet. The damages included millions of dollars of losses and the resignation of the CEO at the time. The rumor, largely believed to be true, is that North Korea orchestrated the hack to prevent the release of the movie, The Interpreter.
- Target: Surely you remember the security breach of Target in 2013. Over 100 million customers had their personal information stolen. Because they didn’t have any IT recovery plan in place, the attack continued for several weeks.
- Chase/JP Morgan: Close to 100 million individuals and millions of small businesses had information stolen from JP Morgan in 2014. Addresses, names, and email addresses were among the information stolen.
- Yahoo!: Just this past year, in the largest security breach to date, over 3 billion people had information stolen through a security breach at Yahoo! Little did many people realize, Fantasy, Flickr, and Tumblr are all branches of Yahoo! that were included in the breach.
- Equifax: Perhaps most unnerving of the recent cyber hacks was that of Equifax. This credit reporting company lost their reputation as a leader in the industry, their stock prices plummeted, and over 200,000 people had their credit card numbers stolen.
- Ashley Madison: This gossip-worthy hack had to potential to expose individuals using this website service to cheat on their spouses. While personal information was stolen, the bigger concern was the privacy of the clients.
- Home Depot: These hackers cleverly stole information from Home Depot during a 5 month span from self checkout lines. Fifty six million customers had their credit card numbers or email addresses stolen.
Clearly, no one can be completely safe from a cyber attack. That is why it is so essential to have an IT recovery plan in place. For more information, contact us at AE Technology Group today.