6 high profile security breaches in 2017

Data breach seems to motor on even in 2017, with the number of breaches jumping 29% to 791, according to a report from Identity Theft Resource Center and CyberScout. This year has not only seen some familiar breach targets, including credit card information and Social Security numbers, but also attacks on third-party data aggregators and companies that could provide information for second-wave attacks. Some of the top companies include Deloitte, Equifax, Verizon, Zomato, Gmail and Brooks Brothers.

September 2017 - Deloitte, one of the world's 'big four' accountacy firms, is the latest to fall victim to cyber attack, with client's secret emails being revealed. Even the plans of some of its blue-chip clients have been compromised. 

September 2017 - The Equifax data breach exposed the personal information of upto 143 million people. The horrifying data breach highlighted just how vulnerable the credit system is. Consumers are now clueless about what to do next, which is bad, really bad on Equifax's part. 

July 2017 - The Verizon data breach in mid-2017 resulted in over 14 million customer records being brutally exposed. This comes a year after Verizon said the contact information of 1.5 million business customers was for sale by hackers.

May 2017 - Leading food-tech company, Zomato, suffered a security breach which resulted in over 17 million user records being stolen. The stolen information had email addresses and hashed passwords of customers.

May 2017 - User concerns with regards to security of their Gmail accounts have increased drastically after log-in credentials (including usernames, email addresses and passwords) of over 1 million were reported to be sold. 

May 2017 - US clothing company, Brooks Brothers, fell victim to cyber attacks in early 2017 when payment card information of certain customers were compromised. The affected payment card data included names, payment card account numbers, card expiration dates and card verification codes.