In 2024, some of the largest and most alarming data breaches in history were recorded.
Below, we analyze the most significant data breaches of 2024: what happened, what caused them, and how they were resolved.
Additionally, we will provide cybersecurity measures to help prevent them.
This breach was so massive that it is considered the largest in history to date, earning it the name "the mother of all breaches."
The breach compromised 26 billion user records from various platforms, including access credentials for services like MySpace, Adobe, Telegram, LinkedIn, and X.
Cybercriminals could use the obtained data to launch other types of cyberattacks, such as impersonating users with compromised passwords, initiating phishing attacks, or conducting fraudulent campaigns to gather even more information and data.
The first step is to change the passwords for accounts on platforms affected by the breach. Be cautious when clicking on links and verify that emails come from legitimate, verified accounts.
In February 2024, Change Healthcare, a company managing medical payments and related data, suffered a cyberattack that impacted a significant portion of the United States' medical information.
The lack of cybersecurity measures, such as multifactor authentication (2FA), allowed cybercriminals to access sensitive information, exposing over a third of the nation's medical records.
The company admitted to paying the cybercriminals the demanded ransom in Bitcoin to recover the compromised patient data. However, despite this, the data ultimately ended up on the Dark Web.
Investing in cybersecurity solutions such as anti-phishing tools, firewalls, password managers, and multifactor authentication is essential. Additionally, adopting managed services for the automatic detection and mitigation of threats (MDR) can help prevent data breaches.
This breach involved 2.7 billion personal records, including highly sensitive data such as Social Security numbers and addresses. It is estimated that the breach originated from a hacking attempt in late 2023 but became public in 2024. The scale of the leak and the quality of the data make this incident particularly severe.
The leaked information includes data collected from government sources, such as state, federal, and local records, and features full names, emails, current and past addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and phone numbers.
Over 560 million people were affected by a breach that compromised personal information and partial credit card details.
The attack was made possible due to the lack of multifactor authentication in the company's systems and was executed through a vulnerability in cloud services.
These, as in the case of Change Healthcare, ended up on the dark web.
The issue with data breaches is that they are often difficult to detect when they occur, especially if the cybercriminal has obtained an employee's account credentials without the employee realizing they have been hacked. This allows the criminal to access the employee's account and either download important company data in bulk or infect the system with malware.
To address these situations, at ESED, as cybersecurity specialists, we have developed our own IT security tool specifically designed to prevent data breaches. It's called WWatcher, and it can detect mass data downloads that may result from stolen passwords.
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