Last year saw a range of headline-grabbing computer hacks that brought devastation, bad publicity and, in some cases, severely affected company share prices.
As predicted, there were more high profile security breaches in 2015 than ever before.
Increasingly sophisticated and brazen attacks, blamed on everyone from the Chinese government to hacking collectives, once again revealed the weakness in corporate and government security.
Here’s a look at 4 of the most notorious attacks of the year:
The US Office of Personnel Management
In one of the largest ever breaches of the US government, the addresses, health and finance details of 19.7 million people were stolen. The hack was believed to have been carried out by the Chinese.
Six months ago, the US discovered that China hacked into the records of the Office of Personnel Management,… https://t.co/odsqOvZd31
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) December 15, 2015
Ashley Madison
The most infamous attack of the year hit the dating site notorious for promoting infidelity. A hacking collective leaked the personal information and credit card details of 11 million users resulting in the CEO leaving, the share price hitting rock bottom and class actions from clients and investors.
Want to sue Ashley Madison over data breach? You must use your real name https://t.co/qeWAojSSxK by @dmkravets
— Ars Technica UK (@ArsTechnicaUK) April 20, 2016
TalkTalk
The UK mobile phone operator was hit in October, the country’s largest attack of the year. Teenage hackers stole details of over 20,000 customers resulting in the company being faced with a bill of up to £35 million, a share price fall and legal action from customers and investors.
Anthem
The US health insurance company was attacked by Chinese hackers apparently looking to learn more about the set up of medical coverage in the US. Hackers apparently gained access to 80 million current and former customers, including their social security numbers, dates of birth and addresses.
Protecting Your Business
It’s obvious that cyber-hacking is an enormous and potentially incredibly damaging threat for companies, so it’s more important than ever for organizations to be vigilant.
In addition to having top-notch anti-virus software in place, one of the best ways to keep your company secure is by installing employee monitoring software.
Solutions can be installed remotely from the cloud to all your work devices; the software will monitor the use of prohibited applications or websites and send an alert to the person in charge of monitoring. Additionally, any unusual activity, such as accessing restricted files can be highlighted.
It’s a vital solution to protect against cyber-hacks and give managers an early warning if any do occur.
Your Turn
Are companies doing enough to prevent hacks from happening?
Let us know in the comments