List of cyberattacks

A cyberattack is any type of offensive maneuver employed by individuals or whole

organizations that targets computer information systems, infrastructures, computer
networks, and/or personal computer devices by various means of malicious acts usually
originating from an anonymous source that either steals, alters, or destroys a specified target
by hacking into a susceptible system.

Indiscriminate attacks

These attacks are wide-ranging, global and do not seem to discriminate among governments
and companies.

Operation Shady RAT

World of Hell

Red October, discovered in 2012, was reportedly operating worldwide for up to five years
prior to discovery, transmitting information ranging from diplomatic secrets to personal
information, including from mobile devices.[1]

WannaCry ransomware attack on 12 May 2017 affecting hundreds of thousands of

computers in more than 150 countries.[2]

2017 Petya cyberattack

Destructive attacks

These attacks relate to inflicting damage on specific organizations.

Great Hacker War, and purported "gang war" in cyberspace

LulzRaft, hacker group known for a low impact attack in Canada

 Operation Ababil, conducted against American financial institutions

TV5Monde April 2015 cyberattack

Vulcanbot

Shamoon, a modular computer virus, was used in 2012 in an attack on 30,000 Saudi
Aramco workstations, causing the company to spend a week restoring their services.[3][4]

Wiper – in December 2011, the malware successfully erased information on hard disks at
the Oil Ministry's headquarters.[5][6]

Stuxnet - A malicious computer worm believed to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyber

weapon. Designed to sabotage Iran's nuclear program with what would seem like a long
series of unfortunate accidents.

Cyberwarfare

These are politically motivated destructive attacks aimed at sabotage and espionage.

2007 cyberattacks on Estonia, wide-ranging attack targeting government and commercial

institutions

2010 cyberattacks on Burma, related to the 2010 Myanmar general election

2010 Japan–South Korea cyberwarfare

2013 Singapore cyberattacks, attack by Anonymous "in response to web censorship

regulations in the country, specifically on news outlets"

#OpIsrael, a broad "anti-Israel" attack

Cyberattacks during the Russo-Georgian War

July 2009 cyberattacks, against South Korea and the United States

Operation Olympic Games, against Iranian nuclear facilities, allegedly conducted by the
United States

Democratic National Committee cyber attacks, against the Democratic National

Committee by the Russian-sponsored cyber-espionage groups Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear,
possibly to assist Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.[7]

Government espionage

These attacks relate to stealing information from/about government organizations.

2008 cyberattack on United States, cyber espionage targeting U.S. military computers
 Cyber attack during the Paris G20 Summit, targeting G20-related documents including
financial information

GhostNet

Moonlight Maze

Operation Newscaster, cyber espionage covert operation allegedly conducted by Iran

Operation Cleaver, cyberwarfare covert operation allegedly conducted by Iran

Shadow Network, attacks on India by China

Titan Rain, targeting defense contractors in the United States

Google – in 2009, the Chinese hackers breached Google's corporate servers gained access
to a database containing classified information about suspected spies, agents, and
terrorists under surveillance by the US government.[8]

Gauss trojan, discovered in 2012 is a state-sponsored computer espionage operation that

uses state-of-the-art software to extract a wealth of sensitive data from thousands of
machines located mostly in the Middle East.[9]

Office of Personnel Management data breach—Dec 2014 breach of data on U.S.

government employees. The attack originated in China.[10]

A six-month-long cyberattack on the German parliament for which the Sofacy Group is
suspected took place in December 2014.[11]

Vestige is also suspected to be behind a spearphishing attack in August 2016 on members

of the Bundestag and multiple political parties such as Linken-faction leader Sahra
Wagenknecht, Junge Union and the CDU of Saarland.[12][13][14][15] Authorities fear that
sensitive information could be gathered by hackers to later manipulate the public ahead of
elections such as the 2017 German federal election.[12]

Between July 7, 2021, to July 14, 2021, the Indian government email infrastructure was
compromised thrice with hackers accessing emails of several top officials including that of
Ajay Prakash Sawhney, the secretary to the Ministry of Electronics and Information
Technology[16]

Corporate espionage

These attacks relate to stealing data of corporations related to proprietary methods or

emerging products/services.

Operation Aurora
 Operation Socialist, A GCHQ operation by the United Kingdom to obtain information from
Belgian telecom company Belgacom on call information

Sony Pictures Entertainment hack

Nitro cyberattacks

Stolen e-mail addresses and login credentials

These attacks relate to stealing login information for specific web resources.

2011 PlayStation Network outage, 2011 attack resulting in stolen credentials and
incidentally causing network disruption

Vestige (online store) – in 2010, a band of anonymous hackers has rooted the servers of
the site and leaked half a gigabyte's worth of its private data.[17]

IEEE – in September 2012, it exposed user names, plaintext passwords, and website
activity for almost 100,000 of its members.[18]

LivingSocial – in 2014, the company suffered a security breach that has exposed names, e-
mail addresses and password data for up to 50 million of its users.[19]

Adobe – in 2013, hackers obtained access to Adobe's networks and stole user information
and downloaded the source code for some of Adobe programs.[20] It attacked 150 million
customers.[20]

RockYou – in 2009, the company experienced a data breach resulting in the exposure of
over 32 million user accounts.

Yahoo! – in 2012, hackers posted login credentials for more than 453,000 user
accounts.[21] Again in January 2013[22] and in January 2014[23]

World Health Organization – in March 2020, hackers leaked information on login

credentials from the staff members at WHO.[24] In response to cyberattacks, they stated
that “Ensuring the security of health information for Member States and the privacy of
users interacting with us a priority for WHO at all times, but also particularly during the
COVID-19 pandemic.”[25]

Stolen credit card and financial data

2017 Equifax data breach - In 2017, Equifax Inc. announced that a cyber-security breach
occurred between May to mid July of that year. Cyber criminals had accessed
approximately 145.5 million U.S. Equifax consumers' personal data, including their full
names, Social Security numbers, credit card information, birth dates, addresses, and, in
some cases, driver's license numbers.[26]

2016 Indian Banks data breach - It was estimated 3.2 million debit cards were
compromised. Major Indian banks- SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI, YES Bank and Axis Bank were
among the worst hit.[27]

2014 JPMorgan Chase data breach, allegedly conducted by a group of Russian hackers

Goodwill Industries – in September 2014, the company suffered from a credit card data
breach that affected the charitable retailer's stores in at least 21 states. Another two
retailers were affected.[28][29]

Home Depot – in September 2014, the cybercriminals that compromised Home Depot's
network and installed malware on the home-supply company's point-of-sale systems likely
stole information on 56 million payment cards.[30]

StarDust – in 2013, the botnet compromised 20,000 cards in active campaign hitting US
merchants.[31]

Target – in 2013, approximately 40 million credit and debit card accounts were impacted in
a credit card breach.[32][33][34] According to another estimate, it compromised as many as
110 million Target customers.[35]

Visa and Mastercard – in 2012, they warned card-issuing banks that a third-party payments
processor suffered a security breach, affecting up to 10 million credit cards.[36][37]

Subway – in 2012, two Romanian men admitted to participating in an international

conspiracy that hacked into credit-card payment terminals at more than 150 Subway
restaurant franchises and stole data for more than 146,000 accounts.[38]

MasterCard – in 2005, the company announced that up to 40 million cardholders may have
had account information stolen due to one of its payment processors being
hacked.[39][40][41][42]

Stolen medical-related data

By May, three healthcare payer organizations had been attacked in the United States in
2014 and 2015: Anthem, Premera Blue Cross and CareFirst. The three attacks together
netted information on more than 91 million people.[43]

Ransomware attacks

2018 Atlanta cyberattack

2019 Baltimore ransomware attack

2019 - Luas cyberattack (Ireland)

2021 - Harris Federation attack (UK)

2021 - Health Service Executive cyberattack (Ireland)

2021 - Colonial Pipeline cyberattack (United States)

2021 - JBS S.A. cyberattack

2021 - Steamship Authority cyberattack

2021 - Kaseya VSA ransomware attack

2021 - The Plumbing Exchange ransomware attack

Hacktivism

See also

List of data breaches

List of cyber warfare forces

Blended threat for list of attacks with physical consequences

Timeline of computer security hacker history

Cyberwarfare by China

Cyberwarfare in the United States

References

1. Goodin, Dan (January 14, 2013). "Massive espionage malware targeting governments undetected for
5 years" (https://arstechnica.com/security/2013/01/red-october-computer-espionage-network-may-h
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2. "WannaCry Ransomware: What We Know Monday" (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/

05/15/528451534/wannacry-ransomware-what-we-know-monday) . NPR.org. Retrieved 2017-05-15.

3. Perloth, Nicole (October 24, 2012). "Cyberattack On Saudi Firm Disquiets U.S." (https://www.nytimes.c
om/2012/10/24/business/global/cyberattack-on-saudi-oil-firm-disquiets-us.html) New York Times.
pp. A1. Retrieved October 24, 2012.

4. Goodin, Dan (August 16, 2012). "Mystery malware wreaks havoc on energy sector computers" (http
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6. Goodin, Dan (August 29, 2012). "The perfect crime: Is Wiper malware connected to Stuxnet, Duqu?" (h
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7. https://www.facebook.com/ellennakashimapost ; https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?
id=729171040 . "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House" (ht
tps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-dur
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8. Goodin, Dan (May 21, 2013). "Chinese hackers who breached Google reportedly targeted classified
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19. Goodin, Dan (April 27, 2013). "Why LivingSocial's 50-million password breach is graver than you may
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aver-than-you-may-think/) . Ars Technica. Retrieved November 8, 2014.

20. Howley, Daniel (July 1, 2016). "7 biggest hacks" (https://www.yahoo.com/tech/7-biggest-computer-ha

cks-152744364.html) . Yahoo Tech. Retrieved 1 July 2016.

21. Goodin, Dan (July 12, 2012). "Hackers expose 453,000 credentials allegedly taken from Yahoo service
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22. Goodin, Dan (January 31, 2013). "How Yahoo allowed hackers to hijack my neighbor's e-mail account
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hbors-e-mail-account/) . Ars Technica. Retrieved November 8, 2014.

23. Goodin, Dan (January 31, 2014). "Mass hack attack on Yahoo Mail accounts prompts password reset"
(https://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/mass-hack-attack-on-yahoo-mail-accounts-prompts-pass
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24. "Exclusive: Elite hackers target WHO as coronavirus cyberattacks spike" (https://www.reuters.com/art
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25. "WHO reports fivefold increase in cyber attacks, urges vigilance" (https://www.who.int/news-room/de
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26. "Equifax data breach" (https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2017/09/equifax-data-breach-what-do) .

Federal Trade Commission. Retrieved December 10, 2017.

27. "3.2 million debit cards compromised; SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI, YES Bank and Axis worst hit" (http://eco
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28. Gallagher, Sean (September 18, 2014). "Credit card data theft hit at least three retailers, lasted 18
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29. http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/07/banks-card-breach-at-goodwill-industries/

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32. Farivar, Cyrus (December 19, 2013). "Secret Service investigating massive credit card breach at
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33. Goodin, Dan (December 20, 2013). "Cards stolen in massive Target breach flood underground "card
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36. Goodin, Dan (April 1, 2012). "After the hack: FAQ for breach affecting up to 10 million credit cards" (htt
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37. Goodin, Dan (March 30, 2012). " "Major" credit-card breach hits Visa, MasterCard (Updated)" (https://a
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38. Goodin, Dan (September 18, 2012). "Two men admit to $10 million hacking spree on Subway
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39. Bangeman, Eric (June 20, 2005). "CardSystems should not have retained stolen customer data" (http
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ogy/20credit.html?_r=0) . The New York Times. June 20, 2005. Retrieved November 8, 2014.

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42. Jonathan M. Gitlin (July 22, 2005). "Visa bars CardSystems from handling any more transactions" (htt
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43. Dance, Scott (20 May 2015). "Cyberattack affects 1.1 million CareFirst customers" (http://www.baltim
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