All of this is either sold to the highest bidder or held as ransom in exchange for millions of dollars from large organizations. From US telecom giant AT&T to Indian cryptocurrency trading platform WazirX, here are some of the biggest data breaches of 2024.
WazirX hackers stole $230 million; company distributes losses among users
Earlier this year, in August, WazirX, one of the most popular cryptocurrency trading platforms in India, experienced a cybersecurity breach, following which the platform paused trading and halted both rupee and crypto withdrawals.
Reportedly, hackers stole cryptocurrency worth $230 million from the platform, affecting nearly half of the platform’s reserves. While the cryptocurrency platform is yet to disclose the number of affected users, the company’s co-founder, Nischal Shetty, said that they plan to distribute the losses amongst users.
As for the other 45 per cent, users can choose to trade their remaining crypto assets without being able to withdraw the funds, or they can trade and withdraw their remaining funds but won’t get priority treatment if the stolen assets are recovered.
Recently, WazirX announced that it is undoing all trades between July 18 and July 21 and that all portfolios will be restored to their status as of July 18, the day the data breach reportedly took place. This means all transactions between July 18 and July 21 will be disregarded, and any fees or referral earnings will be reversed as well.
AT&T, one of the biggest telecom operators in the United States, was affected by not one but two data breaches, which took place months apart from one another. In July, the firm reported that cybercriminals had stolen records of a whopping 110 million people over a time period of six months back in 2022. While the information wasn’t directly stolen from AT&T systems, it contained sensitive information like phone numbers and call records.
