8. Target
When: 2013
Number of accounts affected: 110 million
Next up in our list of biggest data breaches of all time is Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), a company that not many actually link to the possibility of a data breach. However, in December 2013, the retail giant was hit by hackers who had infected the payment-card readers. What did this result in? Some 40 million credit and debit card numbers had been exposed to the hack since that’s the number of cards used in the Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) stores across the United States during the 2013 shopping spree following Thanksgivings.
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The entire problem was announced in January of the next year. The company said that full names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers of 70 million customers had been compromised, along with the credit card info where it was attached to the account. While this was the sure-number provided, it was added that the number could very well rise to 110 million. Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT)’s stock price went down for a bit, but quickly recovered.
