Even the world's most protected information systems admitted leaks due to human factor or hacked with hackers. Here are just the well-known stories of hacking and detecting secret information from computer networks.
1983. Kevin Mitnik penetrated into a computer system of opposite defense in the state of Colorado (USA), being juvenile. He was arrested at 20 years old. Kevin became one of the most famous hackers of the 20th century and wrote a number of books, including the "art of the invasion" (English. The Art of Intrusion, 2005) with real histories of hackers with minor changes to conceal the identity of some of them. He also wrote a book for users who do not want to share information with the government or competitors: "Art is invisible: how to keep privacy in the Big Data era" (English 2017). About the Mitnik filmed the feature film "Hacking" (2000).
American Hacker Jonathan Joseph James (English Jonathan Joseph James, December 12, 1983 - May 18, 2008) In 1999, in 1999 hacked the Network of the Organization's Ministry of Defense - agency to prevent the US military threat. He got access to user names and passwords of employees. Potentially, he could not only view messages, but also to send fake data into the defense department. Then Wunderkind ("10 of the most famous hackers and what happened to them" / ComputerR) received the management of the NASA server and kidnapped the software of the International Space Station.
In 2000, Vasily Gorshkov and Alexey Ivanov were arrested by FBI in Seattle. They were accused of stealing 16,000 credit card numbers from PayPal, Western Union and Narabank.
On February 12, 2004, Microsoft announced the stealing of the source code of the Windows 2000 operating system directly from the Microsoft network. The abducted data was laid out on the network, which allowed everyone to explore the operating system from the inside. Despite the measures taken, Microsoft itself, nor the FBI could find intruders, which caused a blow to the reputation of the world's largest manufacturer of operating systems.
In 2009, the American Cuban origin Alberto Gonzalez organized the abduction of data tens of millions of bank cards from HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEM, TJX COS, BJ's Wholesale Club and Barnes & Noble.
In 2010, the Computer Virus (Stuxnet Iran Confirms Stuxnet Worm Halted Centrifuges) damaged the Iranian nuclear system. 20% centrifuges for uranium enrichment was disabled. The virus copied records from video surveillance cameras and scrolled them so that the security service does not notice the spout of the centrifuge in the emergency mode. Presumably, this is the development of Israeli special services with the support of the United States.
In July 2013, the US authorities accused hackers in hacking the NASDAQ electronic exchange system, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and Carrefour S.A., as well as the Belgian Bank of Dexia Bank Belgium. For seven years (!) The activities of the hacker group were stolen data of 160 million credit cards and funds were removed from 800 thousand bank accounts in different countries. Only one of the hackers is arrested - Dmitry Smilian, the rest, Nikolai Nosnkov, the Roman of Kotov, Alexander Kalinin and Mikhail Rytikov, are wanted. Only a well-known financial damage amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars ("Ten the most high-profile hacker attacks in the history of the Internet").
Since 2006, Julian Assandge has organized a site that allows you to publish information leaks as anonymously ("The case of the life of Assange: that he managed to reveal about the CIA, the Pentagon, the elite of the United States and that he will be for it). Assandzh, according to him, receives information from people who had tolerance to secrets and independently decided to give secrets to publicity. Despite the negative statements about Donald Trump, Assange's actions "unequivocally became one of the important factors in the victory of the New York billionaire in the elections."
Also, publications caused a lot of international scandals. To date, the site has published more than 2.3 million secret documents from the United States, including diplomatic communications and information on the CIA (Assange in his new book spoke about the constant development of spyware in the USA).
The scope of kidnaps from private information systems from year to year is also growing. News feeds are faster headers about leaks of bank data, social networks, web services, as well as mobile applications. An open access on the Internet a map of fitness trackers appeared, which accumulated data on routes of runs more than 27 million people from 2015 to 2017. The peculiarity of the situation is that the Pentagon himself purchased for the military about 2500 fitness trackers in the framework of the campaign to combat obesity. As a result, extremely sensitive information was revealed, including the likelly locations of foreign military bases of the United States (U.S. Soldiers Are Revealing Sensitive and Dangerous Information by Jogging).
In 2018, it was reported on one of the largest corporate leaks of personal data in the world. In 2020, the Mariott hotel has a collective suit in High Court of London, Journalist Martin Bryant. From July 2014 to September 2018, that is, for four years (!) The attackers had access to the personal data of guests of the Mariott hotel chain, including home addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, passport data and bank cards ( Hotel Group Marriott Faces London Lawsuit Over Huge Data Breach).
In 2020, the largest leakage of patients with COVID-19 occurred in Moscow. Personal data about more than 300 thousand diseases became available on the Internet, including names, addresses of residence, phone numbers, medical insurance policies, birthdays, diagnoses, and more (DIT confirmed the leakage of the base with the data by the coronavirus).
According to the head of the Center for Complaints on the US FBI Internet Crimes, the total number of registered cybercrime is only 10-12% of the actual number. This is due to the fears of victims that hackers will publish their discharge of their information (Alexey Chernikov, "Data leaks 2019: statistics, cybersecurity trends and measures to reduce hacking risks"). According to the DLA PIPER report (DLA PIPER GDPR Data Breach Survey 2020), only in 2019 in Europe, more than 160 thousand complaints about violation of personal data legislation were recorded.
Despite the fact that the authenticity of all published materials is often difficult to confirm or refute, the scale of hacking of information systems and personal data leaks and government secrets affect the imagination. It is safe to say only one thing about the accumulation of computer data creates a potential threat to outsiders.