5. LinkedIn
When: 2012
Number of accounts affected: 165 million
Although it’s not quite as popular as other social networks given its profile, LinkedIn Corp is still a very used platform for professionals. The business-networking website suffered a data breach in 2012 that wasn’t kept secret for long. What was actually hidden from the public eye was the fact that it wasn’t just 6.5 million user accounts affected as previously thought, but some 165 million! About 117 million passwords were exposed, pushing other services to go through their own databases and alert users to change their passwords if they matched those stolen ones.
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What was the effect the breach had on LinkedIn’s investors? None. Since the data revealed in 2012 was minimal, the stock prices barely moved. What is more surprising is that following the reveal of the real numbers of that 2012 data breach didn’t move the numbers either. Earlier this month, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has successfully completed the acquisition of LinkedIn. And now, let’s see the top four biggest data breaches of all time.
