Top US Data Breaches and Hacks of 2015

With the year 2015 in our review mirror, we look to 2016 being a year full of surprises when it comes to computer and internet security. In knowing how fast technology is moving and the perpetual growth of data on the internet, it is inevitable that we will witness major data breaches and hacker attacks on large entities this year. Taking a look back, if it teaches us anything, 2015 was a year for the record books as there were several notable data breaches and hacks that deserve a mention in our Top Data Breaches list for 2015 below.

Major Data Breaches and Hacks of 2015

Here is a look back at the top major data breaches of the past year:

#1 - Anthem

At the top of our list for Top Data Breaches and Hacks of 2015 we look to the healthcare industry. In February of 2015, the US health insurance firm, Anthem, lost over 80 million customer records when it was hacked. While most of Anthem's data was encrypted, hackers made away with identifiable personal data ranging from Social Security numbers to addresses and birthdates. To this date, the FBI and other investigating agencies do not know who was responsible for the attack.

#2 – IRS

In America, we want to believe that our taxpayer money is put to good use. After all, many of us fortunate enough pay a good portion of our hard earned money to the IRS. Unfortunately, some of that tax money may prove to be better used by securing the IRS as nearly 100,000 taxpayers had their information stolen when hackers exploited a flaw in the IRS' system. Collected in the data breach was Social Security data that eventually cost taxpayers around $50 million in fraudulent claims.

#3 – OPM

The US Government has had their fair share of attacks from hackers in 2015. Among them, apart from the IRS breach, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) suffered a blow in June of 2015. The OPM data breach uncovered data that included background checks that may have included bits of extremely sensitive information. Such information stolen by unknown hackers may cause harm to the US domestic and foreign diplomatic intelligence world. In all, the hack affected over 22 million people, and experts believe that the full scope of damage done has yet to been seen.

#4 – UCLA Health

While health care proves to be a racket here in America, it is the duty of certain health care providers to properly encrypt and safeguard their own data. As it turns out, the failure of UCLA Health in July of 2015 to encrypt some of their data resulted in a data breach that exposed 4.5 million health care records. The data exposed included everything you could imagine is in your medical record, such as Social Security numbers, medical conditions and even the latest test results on patients.

#5 – CVS, Walgreens

Continuing a trend set by healthcare related entities being hit with data breaches, CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chain was hit with a credit card breach in July of 2015. During the breach millions of credit card credentials, including addresses, phone numbers, emails and passwords were compromised by hackers. Near the same time, and conducted by the same hackers, Costco and Rite Aid were hit in a breach compromising thousands of credit card details.

Other notable Data Breaches and Hacks of 2015 – Ashely Madison, Experian, and Donald Trump's hotel chain.

Be sure to check out the World's Biggest Data Breaches and Hacks interactive visualization Ballon Race chart provided by informationisbeautiful.net.