The ABC News website has recently released an article that summarized the top 10 data breaches of the decade. When adding the total number affected together, along with the fact that these are only the top 10, it is easy to see why it is so critical to regularly monitor your credit and question or refute ANY discrepancies that you see.

1)    Heartland Payment Systems
Year: 2009
Number Affected: undetermined
Description:     Hackers were able to access millions of credit card transactions via     computer.

2)    TJX Companies
Year: 2007
Number Affected: 45 million
Description:    Affected several companies, such as T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. 45 million customer records were stolen from years 2003-2004, however, the breach was reported in 2007.

3)    U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Year: 2009
Number Affected: 76 million
Description: A defective data drive containing data of veterans was sent for repair.

4)    Card systems
Year: 2005
Number Affected: 40 million
Description: This credit card processor exposed cards to potential fraud and it was reported that hackers did use many of those card numbers.

5)    U.S. Veterans Affairs
Year: 2006
Number Affected: 17.5 million
Description: A laptop containing personal information of veterans was stolen from an employee’s home. FBI did report that the laptop was found and the data was not compromised.

6)    Bank of New York Mellon
Year: 2008
Number Affected: 12.5 million
Description: A box of data tapes with personal information was lost while being transported to a storage facility. Those affected were offered credit monitoring services for 36 months, among other service.

7)    Certegy
Year: 2007
Number Affected: 8.5 million
Description: An employee of this financial services firm, based in Florida, stole customer financial records. They did later plead guilty and were sentenced to a fine and jail time.

8)    TD Ameritrade
Year: 2007
Number Affected: 6.3 million
Description: The database of this investment company was hacked and customer records stolen. Information stolen included names and email addresses, resulting in spam to customers.

9)    CheckFree
Year: 2008
Number Affected: 5 million
Description: This online bill payment company, out of Atlanta, was also hacked into. The company domain name was redirected to a Ukranian hosted website that tried to install malware on the computers of site visitors.

10)    Hannaford Bros. Chain
Year: 2009
Number Affected: 4.2 million
Description: This is a supermarket chain based out of Maine. Stores affected were throughout the northeast and Florida. Over 1,500 cases of alleged fraud were reported as a result of this breach.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 7:34 am and is filed under Data Breach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.