The biggest data breaches of the last 15 years

We've become pretty well accustomed to large scale data breaches over recent years. But that doesn’t mean that the numbers involved aren't still significant.

Web hosting comparison site HostingTribunal has put together an infographic looking at the 15 biggest breaches of the last 15 years.

More than 14,717,618,286 records have been lost or stolen since 2013 due to data breaches, and 3,353,178,708 records were compromised in the first half of 2018 alone. In 2017, 86 percent of all breaches worldwide occurred in North America, and in 2018 45.9 percent of data breaches in the US were in the business sector.

Major breaches include, in January 2015, a Russian hacker calling himself 'Peace' stealing 117 million LinkedIn email and password combinations. Cybercriminals collecting the personal data of over 500 million guests of the Marriott International hotel chain between 2014 and 2018, and in September 2018, a successful attack on Facebook compromising 50 million user accounts.

You can see details of the biggest breaches of the last 15 years in the graphic below.