Technology
Biggest Data Breaches of 2024: 1 Billion Records Stolen and Growing

We’re already halfway through 2024, and already this yr we have seen some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent memory. And just while you think some of these hacks couldn’t get any worse, they do occur.
From vast troves of customer personal data which were stolen, stolen and posted online, to tons of medical records regarding most individuals within the United States which were stolen, the worst data breaches of 2024 have already surpassed not less than 1 billion stolen records, and this number is growing. These breaches not only affect individuals whose data has been irretrievably exposed, but in addition embolden criminals who take advantage of their malicious cyberattacks.
Travel with us to the recent past to see how the largest security incidents of 2024 occurred, what their impact was, and in some cases, how they might have been prevented.
Mysterious AT&T data breach exposes 73 million customer accounts
About three years after a hacker released a printed sample of allegedly stolen AT&T customer data, the info breach broker in March put its entire cache of 73 million customer records online on a distinguished cybercrime forum for anyone to see. The data published included customers’ personal information, including names, telephone numbers and mailing addresses, and some customers confirmed that their details were accurate.
However, the telecom giant only took motion after a security researcher discovered that the leaked data included encrypted passwords used to access the client’s AT&T account. A security researcher told TechCrunch on the time that encrypted passwords may very well be easily decrypted, putting roughly 7.6 million existing AT&T customer accounts in danger of being compromised. AT&T forced password resets on its customer accounts after TechCrunch notified the corporate of the researcher’s findings.
One big mystery stays unsolved: AT&T still doesn’t understand how the info was leaked or where it got here from.
Change Healthcare hackers stole medical data from a “significant portion” of people in America
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice sued medical health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group to dam its attempted takeover of health tech giant Change Healthcare, fearing that the transaction would give the healthcare conglomerate broad access to about “half of all Americans’ health insurance claims” annually. The try to block the transaction ultimately failed. Then, two years later, something much worse happened: An influential ransomware gang hacked Change Healthcare; its massive banks of sensitive health data were stolen because one of the corporate’s key systems wasn’t protected with multi-factor authentication.
The cyberattack’s lengthy outages dragged on for weeks, causing widespread disruptions to hospitals, pharmacies and healthcare facilities across the United States. But the complete impact of the info breach has yet to be realized, although the implications for those affected are more likely to be irreversible. UnitedHealth says the stolen data — which it paid hackers to repeat — includes personal, medical and billing information for a “significant portion” of people within the United States.
UnitedHealth has not yet said how many individuals were affected by the breach. The health giant’s CEO, Andrew Witty, told lawmakers that the breach could affect a few third of Americans, and potentially more. For now, it says it only affects tons of of hundreds of thousands of people within the U.S.
The Synnovis ransomware attack caused widespread outages in hospitals across London
A June cyberattack on UK pathology laboratory Synnovis – a blood and tissue testing laboratory for hospitals and healthcare facilities across the UK – caused widespread disruption to patient services for weeks. Local National Health Service trusts that depend on the laboratory postponed 1000’s of surgeries and procedures after the breach, prompting the declaration of a critical incident within the UK health sector.
The cyberattack was blamed on a Russian-based ransomware gang that led to theft of data related to roughly 300 million patient interactions from a “significant number” of years ago. As with the Change Healthcare data breach, the implications for those affected are more likely to be significant and lasting.
Some of the info has already been published online to be able to force the laboratory to pay a ransom. Synnovis apparently refused to pay the hackers a ransom of $50 millionstopping the gang from cashing in on the break-in but leaving it UK government searching for plan in case hackers put hundreds of thousands of medical records online.
One of the NHS trusts that manages five hospitals in London affected by the outages reportedly failed to fulfill data security standards required by the NHS before the June cyberattack on Synnovis.
560 million records were allegedly stolen within the Snowflake Ticketmaster hack
A series of data thefts from cloud data giant Snowflake quickly was one of the largest breaches of the yr, with massive amounts of data stolen from corporate customers.
Cybercriminals have stolen tons of of hundreds of thousands of customer data from some of the world’s largest corporations, including alleged 560 million records from Ticketmaster, 79 million records from Advance Auto Parts and roughly 30 million records from TEG – using stolen credentials of data engineers with access to their employers’ Snowflake environments. Snowflake, for its part, doesn’t require (or force) its customers to make use of a security feature that protects against hacks that depend on stolen or reused passwords.
Incident response firm Mandiant said about 165 Snowflake customers had their accounts stolen, and in some cases, “a significant amount of customer data.” So far, only a handful of the 165 corporations have confirmed that their environments were breached, which also includes tens of 1000’s of worker data from Neiman Marcus AND Bank SantanderAND (*1*)hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District student recordsYou can expect many Snowflake customers to come back forward.
Technology
Lime scooter and Ebike batteries will be recycled by Redwood Materials

The joint company Micromobility Lime has reached an agreement on sending batteries utilized in scooters and electronic bikes to Sewoi materials that extract and recycle critical minerals, comparable to lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper.
The agreement announced on Monday makes Redwood Materials the only real battery recycling partner for common scooters and e-bike bikes situated in cities within the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. The contract doesn’t cover every region where lime worksAn inventory covering cities throughout Europe, Asia and Australia.
In Lime up to now he had other recycling partnerships, especially with Sprout through his suppliers. However, for the primary time, the joint company Micromobility had direct relations with battery recycling in North America, which might directly process the fabric for recovery and returns it to the availability chain.
Redwood Materials, The Carson City, Startup from Nevada founded by the previous CFO Tesla JB Straubel, will get better battery materials when they can’t be used. After recovering and recycling, the materials will be re -introduced within the battery production process. This production system of a closed loop-which can reduce the demand for extraction and refining of minerals-is on the Redwood Materials business center.
The effort can also be consistent with its own goals of limestone sustainable development. Lime is geared toward decarbonization of operations by 2030. The company has made progress in reducing the range 1, 2 and 3 of emissions by 59.5% in five years of basic years 2019. Wapno plans to report the outcomes of carbon dioxide emissions 2024 in May.
“This cooperation means significant progress in the establishment of a more round supply chain, helping our batteries not only to recycled responsibly after reaching the end of their lives, but that their materials are returned to the battery supply chain,” said Andrew Savage, vice chairman for balanced development in Lime.
Lime also has partnerships from Gomi in Great Britain and Voltr in France and other European countries to gather these live battery cells for “Second Life” applications, including, amongst others, in the sphere of consumer electronics, comparable to portable speakers and battery packages.
Redwood Materials has contracts with other micromobility corporations, including Lyft, RAD Power Bikes and bicycle batteries and scooters specialized in recycling. Redwood, which collected over $ 2 billion in private funds, announced at first of this month, opened the research and development center in San Francisco.
(Tagstranslat) ebikes
Technology
The Legal Defense Fund withdraws from the META civil law advisory group over Dei Rolback

On April 11, the Legal Defense Fund announced that he was leaving the external advisory council for civil rights regarding the fear that the changes in technology company introduced diversity, own capital, inclusion and availability in January.
According to those changes that some perceived as the capitulation of meta against the upcoming Trump administration, contributed to their decision To leave the advisory council of the technology company.
In January, LDF, along with several other organizations of civil rights, which were a part of the board, sent a letter to Marek Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, outlining their fears As for a way changes would negatively affect users.
“We are shocked and disappointed that the finish has not consulted with this group or its members, considering these significant changes in its content policy. Non -compliance with even its own advisory group of experts on external civil rights shows a cynical disregard for its diverse users base and undermines the commitment of the meta in the field of freedom of speech with which he claims to” return “.
They closed the letter, hoping that the finish would recommend the ideals of freedom of speech: “If the finish really wants to recommend freedom of speech, he must commit to freedom of speech for all his services. As an advisory group from external civil rights, we offer our advice and knowledge in creating a better path.”
These fears increased only in the next months, culminating in one other list, which from the LDF director, Todd A. Cox, who indicated that the organization withdraws its membership from the META civil law advisory council.
“I am deeply disturbed and disappointed with the announcement of Medical on January 7, 2025, with irresponsible changes in content moderation policies on platforms, which are a serious risk for the health and safety of black communities and risk that they destabilize our republic,” Cox wrote.
He continued: “For almost a decade, the NACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) has invested a lot of time and resources, working with META as part of the informal committee advising the company in matters of civil rights. However, the finish introduced these changes in the policy of the content modification without consulting this group, and many changes directly with the guidelines from the guidelines from LDF and partners. LD can no longer participate in the scope. ” Advisory Committee for Rights “
In a separate but related LDF list, it clearly resembled a finish about the actual obligations of the Citizens’ Rights Act of 1964 and other provisions regarding discrimination in the workplace, versus the false statements of the Trump administration, that diversity, justice and initiative to incorporate discriminates against white Americans.
“While the finish has modified its policy, its obligations arising from federal regulations regarding civil rights remain unchanged. The title of VII of the Act on civic rights of 1964 and other regulations on civil rights prohibit discrimination in the workplace, including disconnecting treatment, principles in the workplace which have unfair disproportionate effects, and the hostile work environment. Also when it comes to inclusion, and access programs.
In the LDF press release, announcing each letters, Cox He called attention Metal insert into growing violence and division in the country’s social climate.
“LDF worked hard and in good faith with meta leadership and its consulting group for civil rights to ensure that the company’s workforce reflects the values and racial warehouses of the United States and to increase the security priorities of many different communities that use meta platforms,” said Cox. “Now we cannot support a company in good conscience that consciously takes steps in order to introduce changes in politics that supply further division and violence in the United States. We call the meta to reverse the course with these dangerous changes.”
(Tagstranslate) TODD A. COX (T) Legal Defense Fund (T) META (T) Diversity (T) Equality (T) inclusion
Technology
Students of young, talented and black yale collect $ 3 million on a new application

Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, juniors from Yale University, collected $ 3 million in only 14 days to finance their startup, series, social application powered by AI, designed to support significant connections and challenge platforms, similar to LinkedIn and Instagram.
A duo that’s a co -host of the podcast A series of foundersHe created the application after recognizing the gap in the way in which digital platforms help people connect. SEries focuses moderately on facilitating authentic introductions than gathering likes, observing or involvement indicators.
“Social media is great for broadcasting, but it does not necessarily help you meet the right people at the right time,” said Johnson in an interview with Entrepreneur warehouse.
The series connects users through AI “friends” who communicate via IMessage and help to introduce. Users introduce specific needs-are on the lookout for co-founders, mentors, colleagues or investors-AI makes it easier to introduce based on mutual value. The concept attracts comparisons to LinkedIn, but with more personal experience.
“You publish photos on Instagram, publish movies on Tiktok and publish work posts on LinkedIn … And that’s where you have this microinfluuncer band,” Johnson added.
The application goals to avoid the superficial character of typical social platforms. Hargrow emphasized that although aesthetics often dominates on Instagram and the content virus drives tabktok, Number It is intentional, deliberate contacts.
“We are not trying to replace relationships in the real world-we are going to make it easier for people to find the right relationships,” said Hargrow.
Parable projects carried out before the seeded (*3*)Funding roundwhich included participation with Pear VC, DGB, VC, forty seventh Street, Radicle Impact, UNCASMON Projects and several famous Angels Investors, including the General Director of Reddit Steve Huffman and the founder of GPTZERO Edward Tian. Johnson called one meeting of investors “dinner for a million dollars”, reflecting how their pitch resonated with early supporters.
Although not the principal corporations, Johnson and Hargrow based pre-coreneuring through their podcast, through which they interviews the founders and leaders of C-Suite about less known elements of constructing the company-as accounting, business law and team formation.
Since the beginning of the series, over 32,000 messages between “friends” have been mentioned within the test phases. The initial goal of the application is the entrepreneurs market. Despite this, the founders hope to develop in finance, dating, education and health – ultimately striving to construct probably the most available warm network on the earth.
(Tagstranslate) VC (T) Yale (T) Venture Capital (T) Technology (T) APP
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