Top 10 Cyber Security Breaches in New York

The cyber attack incident on The New York Times may have served as lesson for businesses in the area. The breach was a politically driven cyber attack which caused The New York Times’ website to remain offline for a period of time.

The attack on JPMorgan Chase impacted 76 million households and 7 million small businesses. The breach that reportedly began in June 2014 went unnoticed for a total of two months. JP Morgan Chase’s technology environment was compromised as attackers gain privileged administrative access to many of the firm’s servers, which also gave the attackers access to customer data. The data included contact information such as name, address, e-mail and phone number. The attack was orchestrated through a phishing attacks.

On June 2021, New York City’s law department system was hacked gaining unauthorized access and consequently forcing officials to take 1,000 lawyers offline. Although the possible motives of the hack were unknown, officials concluded that it was not a ransom situation and no data was compromised in the hack.

St. Lawrence Health Hospitals in New York fell under a cyber attack that forced them to disable computer systems and use offline documentation methods. However, no evidence was found to indicate any leak of patients’ data.

The New York transit agency’s computer system was attacked on April 2021. Luckily, the riders were not put at risk due to the intrusion. Hackers did not compromise customers’ personal information because of the swift actions of the M.T.A. and its team. The breach may have been considered as North America’s third largest cyber attack on a transit network and may have been connected to a foreign government.

The New York-based telecommunications company underwent a cyber security breach on their enterprise client portal. The attackers acquired basic contact information on a handful of Verizon’s enterprise customers. In another case on October 2022, attackers were able to gained access to a number of prepaid customers accounts. They also used the credit card info they uncovered to swap SIM’s.

NYU revealed they had a breach on July 2021 where hackers obtained unauthorized access to its network. Personal information about thousands of individuals affiliated with NYU were leaked in the process. These individuals include students, faculty members, and applicants. The university later promised to provide all the victims a one-year complimentary monitoring and identity theft protection as they investigate the situation.

On September 2022, Fast Company’s content management system was hacked from which the hacker altered the news outlet’s homepage and headlines. In the process the hacker created an administrator account on their systems and accessed tokens, Apple News API keys, and Amazon SES secrets.

The NYRA operates New York’s three largest horse racing tracks. On August 2022, hackers were able to encrypt NYRA’s computer system. They were able to obtain access to employees’ personal information including names, health records, insurance records, and social security and driver license numbers. The ransomware attack’s demands were unmet and the information was eventually released.

Citigroup, the third largest bank in 2011, failed to detect a hack that was in their system for months. The hackers responsible, used Citigroup’s customer website to enter and avoid security defenses. They mimicked being credit card holders and were able to break into the banks data and financial information. About 360 thousand accounts were affected by the data breach and ultimately leading the company to a $2.7 million loss.