From Wikileaks to Cambridge Analytica: Record the 10 biggest cyberattacks and leaks of the decade

Yesterday, February 11, Safer Internet Day was marked. To celebrate the date, Kaspersky decided to take a "time travel" through the darkest moments in the history of online information security in the past 10 years.

Throughout the decade, there have been a number of cyberattacks and leaks that have made headlines around the world. One of the first cases that marked the decade was that of WikiLeaks, the website created by Australian journalist and activist Julian Assange. In November 2010, the platform revealed 250,000 confidential documents exchanged between more than 250 US embassies and the US State Department in Washington.

The Cambridge Analytica case also ran a lot of paint at the end of the decade. The consultant ended up not surviving the scandal that involved the use and manipulation of data from millions of Facebook users. The company has been accused of improper access to 87 million Facebook profiles and its use to influence the results of Donald Trump's campaign for the US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.

Featured on Kaspersky's list are cases like that of Uber, which was the target of a ransomware attack in October 2016, but chose to cover up what happened and pay the ransom demanded by hackers, or the PlayStation Network (PSN) attack from Sony. In all, about 77 million PSN users were the target of an attack that compromised their personal data. Stolen information included names, e-mail addresses, access credentials, and even players' bank details.

Is Portugal a target for hackers?

According to Kaspersky researchers, Portugal is far from becoming one of the most coveted targets in the world of cybercrime. However, this does not mean that the country has not been the victim of computer attacks or information leaks over the decade.

In the last year, for example, Portugal was the third country most affected by the RevengeHotels malware campaign. Through malicious software, hackers were able to remotely access credit card data stored on hotel reservation systems and online travel agencies through malicious files attached to emails.

Regarding the universe of information leaks, Portugal also has an internationally known hacker. In Rui Pinto 2019, Rui Pinto was arrested for publicly assuming to be a Football Leaks collaborator, having released information from Budapest, Hungary, under the pseudonym John. More recently, it was discovered that Rui Pinto is the whistleblower in the Luanda Leaks case, being responsible for the disclosure of the more than 715 thousand documents that exposed Isabel dos Santos' fortune.