The 1980s are remembered fondly for many things: music television channels that actually showed music videos, “The Brat Pack,” and some of the most iconic video games of all time—just to name a few. But the same decade also introduced the world to the first PC virus, and the sophistication level of cyberthreats has evolved exponentially ever since.

“THE BRAIN”The Alvi brothers, computer programmers from Pakistan, create what is now considered the first PC virus.1

“MELISSA” AND “ILOVEYOU” VIRUSES

In back-to-back years, two large-scale social engineering attacks affect tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of computers, respectively, and serve as a wake up call to organizations around the globe. 4 5

AMERICAN BUSINESS HACK (2005)Spanning eight years, hacktivist groups in Russia and Ukraine steal 160 million credit and debit card numbers, as well as 800,000 bank accounts from U.S. banks and companies.7

2009The average organizational cost of a data breach is $3.4 million and the most expensive data breach costs one organization more than $31 million.9

2016During the first six months of this year, 974 worldwide companies reported data breaches resulting in more than 554 million compromised records.12

2007446 data breaches in the United States expose approximately 130 million records.8

THE RISE OF "HACKTIVISIM” (2011)The rise of "hacktivisim"—58% of data theft is tied to hackers claiming to carry out cyber attacks on behalf of their political or social beliefs.10

“THE YEAR OF THE BREACH 2.0” (2015)More than 707.5 million records are compromised in 2015—that's an average of 1.9 million records every day! 11

CREDIT CARDSCredit cards become the next target of cyber attacks when a string of major retailers falls victim to a massive data breach that compromised the payment card information of at least 45 million individuals.6

THE “MORRIS” WORM 23-year-old Robert Tappan Morris disables6,000 computers with what is widelyconsidered the first computer worm.2

In order to keep up with the rapid sophistication of cyberthreats and stay ahead of savvy hackers, modern

organizations need to level up their security.

SOURCES:1. http://www.pc-history.org/pc-virus.htm2. http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/opinions/the-history-of-cybersecurity/3. http://www.pc-history.org/pc-virus.htm4. http://www.welivesecurity.com/2016/07/15/flashback-friday-melissa-virus/5. http://www.zdnet.com/article/inside-the-iloveyou-worm-5000107344/6. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=37737827. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/biggest-worst-data-breaches-hacks_us_55d4b5a5e4b07addcb44fd9e8. https://www.statista.com/statistics/273550/data-breaches-recorded-in-the-united-states-by-number-of-breaches-and-records-exposed/9. http://www.securityprivacyandthelaw.com/uploads/file/Ponemon_COB_2009_GL.pdf10. http://www.verizonenterprise.com/resources/reports/rp_data-breach-investigations-report-2012-ebk_en_xg.pdf11. http://blog.gemalto.com/security/2016/03/03/2015-data-breaches-by-the-numbers/12. http://www.gemalto.com/press/Pages/Gemalto-releases-findings-of-first-half-2016-Breach-Level-Index.aspx

1992The number of known PC viruses eclipses 1,000.3

MODERN CYBER ATTACKS (2005-PRESENT)

58%

“THE YEAR OF THE BREACH” (2014)A string of data breaches on some of the largest and most well-known organizations in the world results in 800 million stolen accounts.

To learn more about how Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) can enhance passwords today and lay the groundwork for more sophisticated security

measures tomorrow, read our MFA eBook.

1986

1989

2003

1999-2000

In part one of this infographic series, you learned that evolving cyberthreats are making passwords obsolete. Part two shows you how rapidly these threats can advance.

A CYBER SECURITYCHRONICLEPART T WO

A CYBER SECURITYCHRONICLEPART II

LEARN MORE

$3.4MILLION

AVG COST OF A DATA BREACH

554 MILLION COMPROMISED

RECORDS

THE EVOLUTION OFCYBERTHREATS