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There are mainly two types of cyberattacks. Those intended to disable the computer or network, and those made with the intention of gaining access to data.

▲Hackers use a variety of methods to conduct cyberattacks. They can operate alone or in groups, launching coordinated attacks.

▲According to CSO, 92% of malware (viruses, trojans, worms) is delivered by e-mail.

▲In 1988, an American student created a worm that morphed into a virus, infecting about 6000 computers.

▲The estimated damage was US$10 to US$100 million.

▲In 2000, a Canadian 15-year-old high school student known as 'MafiaBoy' launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on number of websites.

▲The attacked websites included Amazon, CNN, eBay, and Yahoo!. The attacks resulted in an estimated damage of US$1.7 billion.

▲In 2009, hackers targeted Google servers allegedly to access Chinese human rights activists' emails.

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The Chinese government was suspected of being behind the attack. In 2010, Google relocated its servers to Hong Kong.

▲Another 15-year-old boy named Jonathan James was able to hack into the US Department of Defense, gaining access to a large amount of confidential data.

▲This allowed him to steal NASA software worth US$1.7 million. The systems were impacted for three weeks, costing NASA US$41,000. Jonathan James took his own life in 2008.

▲Kevin Poulsen hacked into Los Angeles' telephone services so that he could win a car on a radio competition.

▲He successfully blocked any other callers and eventually won the car. He was later sentenced to five years in prison.

▲In 2008, a group of young hackers launched a cyberattack on the Church of Scientology website, reportedly because they were against the religion.

▲This was just one of many attacks by the group known as 'Anonymous.'

▲Three teenagers from California attacked around 500 government and private computers that were running the Sun Solaris operating system.

▲The US government first suspected that Iraqi operatives were behind the cyberattack.

▲The Melissa virus infected Microsoft Word documents and spread via email.

▲The virus has reportedly caused about US$1.1 billion in damages worldwide.

▲An attack on all root servers in the US almost stopped the internet.

▲This was one of the most complex cyberattacks in history, and could have had disastrous consequences if it had lasted for more than one hour.

▲In 2009, Albert Gonzalez managed to steal millions of credit card numbers from over 250 financial institutions in the US.

▲Gonzalez then reportedly spent US$75,000 on a birthday party. This is still the biggest card fraud in history.

▲In 2010, Paypal restricted the account used by WikiLeaks to raise funds.

▲As a result, several individual users boycotted Paypal and hackers launched an attack on the company. The estimated damage was approximately US$4.5 million.

▲An Iranian nuclear facility was attacked by a worm called Stuxnet. The attack destroyed 1000 nuclear centrifuges.

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Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the attacks.

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They are attacks made from one or more computers, toward another computer, group of computers, or network.

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Cybercrime is big business, and while governments and the private sector do everything they can to prevent hacker attacks, history tells us this is not always an easy task.

Curious to learn more? Browse through the gallery to uncover the most notorious cyberattacks in history.

Cybercrime: Major hacks and their impacts

Exploring the biggest attacks in history

12/12/24 por StarsInsider

LIFESTYLE Cyber security

Cybercrime is big business, and while governments and the private sector do everything they can to prevent hacker attacks, history tells us this is not always an easy task.

Curious to learn more? Browse through the gallery to uncover the most notorious cyberattacks in history.