Biggest hacks and data breaches of 2016, from Yahoo! breach to DDos attacks

The number of hacks and breaches that came to light this year is close to 3,000 incidents. Here are some of 2016's biggest hacks that made the headlines.

Yahoo! breach

Last September, Yahoo! disclosed a data breach involving 500 million accounts. The company mentioned that it happened sometime in late 2014. It was believed to be the largest personal data theft at the time, but the same tech company toppled its own record when it revealed in mid-December that data from a billion users were leaked back in August 2013, PC World reported.    

Ransomware

The malicious virus made headlines this year as more strains and types started popping out of nowhere. Security experts have already tagged them as an epidemic. It infects a system and encrypts its files, and the perpetrators then demand Bitcoin as ransom, hence the name. High profile cases were reported this year, which include hospitals, universities, local business and even churches.

DDoS attacks

Several major websites that include Twitter, Reddit and Spotify were knocked offline last Oct. 21.  Several days later, it was found out that the attack was attributed to about 100,000 IoT devices like webcams and DVRs, launching a distributed denial of service (DDoS) against a major domain name system (DNS) provider called Dyn. These devices were infected by the Mirai malware.

Bangladesh Bank heist/SWIFT hack

Around $81 million was stolen last February from the central bank of Bangladesh due to an exploit on the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) transaction software, which the bank was connected to. The hackers were said to have been planning a $1 billion cyber robbery but the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which was about to issue additional payment to the fake orders, spotted something off, Reuters reported.

DNC/NSA hack

Some hackers eventually got tired of running after businesses and private individuals and decided to up the ante and hack the U.S. government. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) used by Hillary Clinton's campaign was infiltrated by what is believed to be Russian hackers. For approximately five days, the system was exposed and the hackers were able to access the analytics program used by DNC. 

Meanwhile, a group called Shadow Brokers claimed that it had obtained hacking tools from the Equation Group of the National Security Agency. These tools are said to be capable of infecting the firmware of devices that even refreshing the operating system will not flush out the malware.

These are just a handful of the cyber-related attacks that happened in 2016.