Topic > The Most Damaging Hacker Attacks in History

In December 2013, Target and Target customers were shocked when news came out that 40 million Target credit cards had been stolen from nearly 2,000 Target stores. Hackers accessed data from a point of sale system and over 11GB of data was stolen. Target received internal warnings and did not act, resulting in Target discovering the breach when contacted by the Department of Justice. Target Corp. will pay 18.5 million to 47 states as part of a 2013 data breach settlement. The cost of the breach is ridiculously high. Senior management, including CEO Gonsalves and CIO Baldwin, lost their jobs. Target board members have been threatened with removal. Banks had to refund money stolen from customers via their credit cards and pay for replacement cards worth more than 200 million. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Using a cloud computing setup, hackers launched malware on Home Depot's servers in 2014. Before the hackers were kicked off the servers. This cost Home Depot approximately $56 million in restitution. A collective group of hackers called Guardians of Peace managed to insert malware into Sony's servers. Guardians claim to have stolen 100 terabytes of data from Sony servers. The data cleanup and recovery cost Sony $100 million. The cloud storage of the health insurance company Anthem was hit hard by hackers in February 2015. A cyber attack stole personal information of nearly 80 million people. The stolen information included names and Social Security numbers, putting customers at risk of identity theft. This mistake is estimated to cost Anthem more than $100 million. In 2008, Heartland Payment Systems was hit with a nasty piece of malware that broke into their data room and stole over 130 million debit and credit card numbers. The company didn't even know this until early 2009! At the time, it was the most expensive breach, totaling approximately $140 million in overall legal fees and costs. Starting with the attack in 2007, hackers targeted fashion retailer TJ Maxx for a staggering 18 months. The TJ Maxx hack originally caused $118 million in damages, but has since risen to $162 million as they continue to deal with the fallout. Sony PlayStation was hit in 2011, a few years before the Guardians set their sights on the entertainment division. Several hackers broke into Sony's digital data room and stole 100 million customer records from the PlayStation Online service. This cost them a whopping $171 million and public opinion towards them soured after it was discovered that Sony knew about the hack a full 6 days before announcing it to the public. Cunning hackers hit Hannaford Bros' main servers in 2007, and the malware spread to all 300 stores and independent stores selling Hannaford products. Overall, the hackers made off with 4.2 million debit and credit card numbers at an estimated cost of $252 million. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay In 2006 the Veterans Administration got burned when the database containing all 26.5 million records was stolen.