This is a list of reports about

data breach A data breach, also known as data leakage, is "the unauthorized exposure, disclosure, or loss of personal information". Attackers have a variety of motives, from financial gain to political activism, political repression, and espionage. There ...

es, using data compiled from various sources, including press reports, government news releases, and mainstream news articles. The list includes those involving the theft or compromise of 30,000 or more records, although many smaller breaches occur continually. Breaches of large organizations where the number of records is still unknown are also listed. In addition, the various methods used in the breaches are listed, with hacking being the most common. Most reported breaches are in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, at least in part because of relatively strict disclosure laws in North American countries. 95% of data breaches come from government, retail, or technology industries. It is estimated that the average cost of a data breach will be over $150 million by 2020, with the global annual cost forecast to be $2.1 trillion."Data Breach Industry Forecast"
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Experian Experian plc is a multinational corporation, multinational data broker and consumer credit reporting company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Experian collects and aggregates information on more than 1 billion people and businesses including ...

'' (2015) As a result of data breaches, it is estimated that in first half of 2018 alone, about 4.5 billion records were exposed. In 2019, a collection of 2.7 billion identity records, consisting of 774 million unique email addresses and 21 million unique passwords, was posted on the web for sale. In January 2024, a data breach dubbed the "mother of all breaches" was uncovered. Over 26 billion records, including some from

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

, Canva,

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

, and

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropbox w ...

, were found in the database. No organization immediately claimed responsibility. In August 2024, one of the largest data security breaches was revealed. It involved the background check databroker, National Public Data and exposed the personal information of nearly 3 billion people.

List of data breaches involving a government or public entity

List of data breaches involving companies

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Data breaches, List of * Breaches Cyberwarfare Internet privacy Internet vigilantism * Crime-related lists Internet-related lists

List of data breaches involving a government or public entity

List of data breaches involving companies

See also

References