Sony Pictures – 2014
If you have a television, the internet, or a passing interest in pop culture then you probably are well aware of Sony’s recent issues with data breaches. The company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, came under fire by North Korea for their role in the production of a film titled The Interview. The Interview is a satirical comedy that openly mocks the reigning leader of North Korea. The Koreans, never proponents of free speech, saw the film as an act of war and threatened Sony with repercussions. Sony still made the film and eventually they would pay for it. A group by the name of Guardians of Peace went on to hack and release gigabytes of internal data from the company. Almost 50,000 people were made vulnerable due to the attack and some of the information released was absolutely abysmal. In Hollywood your private documents are as valuable as cash and suddenly every studio in the business could read their detailed blueprints for how to steer their franchises, which films they want sequels to, and which celebrities they hated working with. The breach was an unmitigated disaster as more and more dirt was dug up. While not the biggest breach Sony endured, this one was far more damaging due to the sensitive nature of the documents.
Home Depot – 2014
In 2014 Home Depot went from blue collar box store darling to the ire of a nation when over 56 million paying cards were compromised. The breach happened in September and the data breach notification didn’t go out until weeks after the initial attack. According to reports a multitude of card readers were infected some time in May of 2014. For the better prat of four months there was malware implanted on these devices that pretended to be antivirus software. This was one of the largest direct attacks on a retailer in the history of the digital age. For whatever reason this story didn’t make as big of a hubbub as some of the other breaches on our list. Chalk that one up to the PR team at Home Depot.
