Top 4 Cyber Security Threats in 2013

In today’s highly digitalized world, cyber security has become an important issue for individuals and businesses alike. But despite the non-stop evolvement of technology, firewalls, malware detectors, and so on, security breaches still occur every single day. Today, we would like to present you with an overview of the 4 most important cyber security threats of 2013.

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The following stories made headlines in 2013 and forced countless organizations around the world to realize that they should treat cyber security with a lot more attention. Let’s take a look at the countdown.

No. 4: The Syrian Electronic Army


The Syrian Electronic Army, an organization advocating for the Syrian regime, made headlines in April 2013 when it hacked into several accounts belonging to US news corporations. The most popular attack was that on Associated Press’ Twitter account, where hackers tweeted that 2 bombs had exploded in the White House and that the US President had been injured as a result. The attack led to a plummet of the stock exchange, which dropped 140 points, albeit for a brief time. The Syrian Electronic Army also hacked into the web pages of the Washington Post, The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT), and The Onion.

No. 3: The $45 million cyber bank heist


One of the largest bank heists in history took place not at gun point, but rather on the Internet. In May 2013, the New York District Attorney revealed that it was investigating a case of stolen account information, which led to a bank heist of over $45 million. Three individuals were finally charged in the case. The defendants hacked into several systems, such as 7-Eleven, Nasdaq, and J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) and use the information to withdraw millions from ATMs.

No. 2: The HealthCare.gov glitches


When HealtCare.gov, a federal web page meant to aid citizens with their health insurance issues, was launched in October of 2013, technical troubles ensued almost immediately, which led many people wonder whether hackers were behind the malfunctions. Sure enough, in November of the same year, the Department of Homeland Security revealed that the federal website had indeed been the target of hackers. Even though the attacks have proven unsuccessful, this still caused some concern, as a successful attempt might lead to a compromise of the entire website, which holds sensitive information for all those registered.

No. 1: Edward Snowden and the Chinese cyber espionage scandal


Few events in cyber security where as popular as the now infamous case of Edward Snowden and the NSA espionage. Shortly after the US Government accused China of hacking into US federal files, China responded with similar claims. However, the Chinese government was backed up by Edward Snowden, a former contractor of the NSA. According to him, the USA had hacked into Chinese universities, telecommunication companies, and other organizations. In addition, Snowden also leaked several documents that showed the NSA was taping phones and checking the internet records of millions of Americans.