Recent Data Breaches: A Look Back

[The following is excerpted from "A Data Breach Bonanza," a new Alert issued this week on Dark Reading's Attacks and Breaches Tech Center.]

Recent data breaches have ranged from hacktivism to data theft to cyberespionage. Today, Dark Reading offers a look back at its coverage of the latest breaches, and some analysis of why they happened. Among the stories in this new Dark Reading Alert:

* The Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report provides an in-depth look at a wide range of breaches, including hacktivist attacks and criminal data theft. Breaches via physical attack and social network attack are up, the report says.

* The Pushdo Botnet is back, this time in a form that can morph, making it more difficult for botnet hunters to find.

* Attackers from the hacktivist group LulzSec were sentenced to prison time in the U.K. for their penetration of major government and business sites.

* Eight New Yorkers have been indicted in the breakup of a crime ring that may have stolen as much as $45 million in prepaid debit cards.

* A breach at the U.S. Department of Labor shows weaknesses in the vulnerability scanning process and exposes new vulnerabilities in Microsoft applications.

To read more about these recent breaches -- and others covered in this compendium of news -- download the free report.

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