The 8 Worst Data Breaches Of All Time

Data breaches in large companies are the new normal, and customers have grown accustomed to hearing about data leaks, information thefts, and loss of their personal information. But for enterprises, data breaches can be disastrous. IBM estimates the cost of an average breach at $3.8 billion. And damage to a company's reputation and level of customer trust can be immeasurable.

According to the ITRC (Identity Theft Resource Center), there have been 5,754 data breaches between November 2005 and November 2015, exposing 856,548,312 records. According to their findings, 783 of those breaches occurred in 2014, the most in a single year to date. ITRC data also indicated that 29% of breaches involved hacking incidents in 2014, compared to just 14.1% in 2007. This shows an upward trend in the number of data breaches resulting from an outside cyber-attack.

Although the data includes a comprehensive list of data breaches, whether large-scale or small, there are a few that stand out from the rest as the worst in history -- in terms of the resulting costs and number of records compromised. Here we list the eight most disastrous breaches, highlighting the cause of each breach and the effects on the public and business sectors.

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