Data breaches have become an all-too-common feature of digital life, with incidents affecting institutions big and small, from hotels to government departments.
These incidents put users’ personal details at risk of exploitation by criminals, terrorists, and rogue states.
While perfect security is impossible, many breaches are avoidable.
WIRED provides an overview of some of the worst - and most illuminating - breaches to date, including the 2017 Equifax breach, which exposed the data of nearly 150m people; the US Office of Personnel Management breach in 2015, which gave hackers surnames, addresses, dates of birth, and even fingerprints; and the 2020 T-Mobile breach, which impacted 37m customers.