Hackers’ hitlist: Cyber criminals and their targets
Written by News on 13/05/2017
As hackers paralyse the computer systems of NHS organisations as part of an international operation, Sky News looks at some of the most high-profile attacks of recent times.
Ciaran Martin, head of the new National Cyber Security Centre, said earlier this year Britain was being hit by dozens of cyberattacks a month, including attempts by Russian state-sponsored hackers to steal defence and foreign policy secrets.
:: Twitter, The Guardian, Netflix, Reddit, Airbnb and CNN
These organisations were among those targeted in one of the largest-scale cyberattacks of last year.
They were victims of a massive denial of service attack (DDoS) – caused by a network of infected computers known as botnet, which bombards internet servers with so much traffic they collapse.
Cyberattacks come in various forms but mainly involve data breaches by fraudsters trying to get into systems to steal information such as customer account details.
:: Wonga
Payday loan company Wonga suffered a cyberattack in April 2016 when a large data breach could have affected as many as 245,000 customers, including bank account numbers and sort codes.
:: Three
In November 2016, the mobile network suffered a data breach which allowed fraudsters to steal phones. The company said personal details, including names and addresses, had been accessed by using a log-in to a database of customers eligible for a phone upgrade.
:: TalkTalk
In 2015 TalkTalk struggled to confirm how many of its four million customers were affected after hackers got into the website. About 157,000 personal records were compromised.
:: Mumsnet
In 2014 Mumsnet became the victim of the infamous and widespread Heartbleed SSL software flaw which allowed hackers to access up to 1.5 million user accounts.
:: Hotpoint
Over the Easter weekend this year, Hotpoint’s UK service websites were hacked and for six days the company’s UK and Republic of Ireland sites which host repair services and warranty forms, redirected customers to dubious websites.
:: NHS
In March the confidential medical details of 26 million GP patients were believed to have been made available to hundreds of thousands of people. It was described as "the biggest data protection breach in the history of the NHS" by privacy campaign group medConfidential.
The Information Commissioner is looking into the breach, which affects patients whose GP surgeries use an IT system called SystmOne.
(c) Sky News 2017: Hackers’ hitlist: Cyber criminals and their targets
