{"id":98325,"date":"2020-01-29T14:44:36","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T22:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/?p=98325"},"modified":"2025-08-12T02:37:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:37:17","slug":"2019-data-breaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/privacy-identity-protection\/2019-data-breaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Security Lessons From 2019\u2019s Biggest Data Breaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

2019 already feels like it\u2019s worlds away, but the data breaches many consumers faced last year are likely to have lasting effects. As we look back on 2019, it\u2019s important to reflect on how our online security has been affected by various threats. With that said, let\u2019s take a look at the biggest breaches of the year and how they\u2019ve affected users everywhere.<\/p>\n

Capital One breach<\/h2>\n

In late July, approximately 100 million Capital One<\/a> users in the U.S. and 6 million in Canada were affected by a breach exposing about 140,000 Social Security numbers, 1 million Canadian Social Insurance numbers, 80,000 bank account numbers, and more. As one of the 10 largest banks based on U.S. deposits, the financial organization was certainly poised as an ideal target for a hacker to carry out a large-scale attack. The alleged hacker claimed that the data was obtained through a firewall misconfiguration, allowing for command execution with a server that granted access to data in Capital One\u2019s storage space.<\/p>\n

Facebook breach<\/h2>\n

In early September, a security researcher found an online database exposing 419 million user phone numbers linked to Facebook<\/a> accounts. The exposed server was left without password protection, so anyone with internet access could find the database. The breached records contained a user\u2019s unique Facebook ID and the phone number associated with the account. In some instances, the records also revealed the user\u2019s name, gender, and location by country.<\/p>\n

Collection #1 breach<\/h2>\n

Last January, we met Collection #1<\/a>, a monster data set that exposed 772,904,991 unique email addresses and over 21 million unique passwords. Security researcher Troy Hunt first discovered this data set on the popular cloud service MEGA, specifically uncovering a folder holding over 12,000 files. Due to the sheer volume of the breach, the data was likely comprised of multiple breaches. When the storage site was taken down, the folder was then transferred to a public hacking site, available for anyone to take for free.<\/p>\n

Verifications.io breach<\/h2>\n

Less than two months after Collection #1, researchers discovered a 150-gigabyte database containing 809 million records exposed by the email validation firm Verifications.io<\/a>. This company provides a service for email marketing firms to outsource the extensive work involved with validating mass amounts of emails. This service also helps email marketing firms avoid the risk of having their infrastructure blacklisted by spam filters. Therefore, Verifications.io was entrusted with a lot of data, creating an information-heavy database complete with names, email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, gender, date of birth, personal mortgage amounts, interest rates, and more.<\/p>\n

Orvibo breach<\/h2>\n

In mid-June, Orvibo<\/a>, a smart home platform designed to help users manage their smart appliances, left an Elasticsearch server (a highly scalable search and analytics engine that allows users to store, search, and analyze big volumes of data in real-time) online without password protection. The exposure left at least two billion log entries each containing customer data open to the public. This data included customer email addresses, the IP address of the smart home devices, Orvibo usernames, and hashed passwords, or, unreadable strings of characters that are designed to be impossible to convert back into the original password.<\/p>\n

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What Users Can Learn From Data Breaches<\/h2>\n

Data breaches serve as a reminder that users and companies alike should do everything in their power to keep personal information protected. As technology continues to become more advanced, online threats will also evolve to become more sophisticated. So now more than ever, it\u2019s imperative that users prioritize the security of their digital presence, especially in the face of massive data leaks.\u00a0If you think you might have been affected by a data breach or want to take the necessary precautions to safeguard your information, follow these tips to help you stay secure:<\/p>\n