Reviewing cyber-attacks may be a scary topic but it is one that we should all be aware of and stay up to date on the types of hacks trending. By staying aware we are better able to prepare for possible attacks.

Here is a list of some of the largest cyber-attacks of 2017:

Equifax

One of the largest credit bureaus was breached during mid- May through July. This was one of the largest cybersecurity incidents in history. It was estimated that 145.5 million U.S. consumers could be affected by this. The information exposed included Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses.

Uber

Although the actual hack happened in 2016, it was announced during fall of 2017 that there had been 57 million driver and rider accounts stolen. The company paid hackers $100,000 in ransom to delete the data and then kept the breach a secret for more than a year. The deal that was initiated with security officer, Joe Sullivan under the watch of the chief executive, Travis Kalanick resulted in them both leaving the company.

Voter information

Technically this was not a cyber-attack however 200 million registered U.S. voters had their personal information exposed due to improperly configured security setting on the Amazon S3 server. The information exposed included names, birth dates, addresses, voter registration details and social media posts. This is the third time that a huge portion of the national voter registration database has been found leaked online.

School district hacks

School districts across the country have received text messages threatening the release of personal data by a group called Dark Overlord. In September, this group sent threatening texts to children and their parents along with a Montana school district superintendent. This group demands ransom for the exchange of deleting the stolen personal data.

These are just some of the many cyber-attacks we saw in 2017 and expect even more in 2018. Learning from past cyber-attacks is crucial. Make sure you are preparing your business for possible threats in 2018. If you feel stressed with planning your cybersecurity budget, here are ways to justify it.