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		</div><p>Data breaches continued to be a major issue for the public in 2018 with a series of serious cases ranging from retailers to social networks, resulting in millions of personal records being compromised.</p>
<p>2018 will be remembered as one of the most prolific in data security history, with everything from names and ages, to payment cards and passport details leaked.</p>
<p>Here are some of the notable cases to affect the UK and beyond:</p>
<p><strong>MyFitnessPal</strong></p>
<p>Popular diet and fitness app MyFitnessPal was hacked in late February, resulting in email addresses and passwords of around 150 million users globally being accessed.</p>
<p>The app, owned by US sportswear brand Under Armour, said that payment details were not jeopardised in the breach but urged all users to change their passwords immediately.</p>
<p>It became aware of the incident on March 25 and began informing users four days later.</p>
<p><strong>Google+</strong></p>
<p>Two breaches affecting Google’s failing social network were reported in 2018, although one had occurred years before.</p>
<p>The first issue was discovered in March but was only reported six months later, resulting in the personal information of up to 500,000 users being exposed – though it said at the time that it had no evidence that any of the affected personal information was misused.</p>
<p>As a result, the tech giant announced plans to close Google+.</p>
<p>In December, a second breach affecting 52.5 million users was revealed, leading Google to bring forward its planned closure of the social network from August 2019, to April.</p>
<p><strong>Cathay Pacific</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/465924E8-2ED2-4ABE-8317-C6CFB385BD2D.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-123218" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/465924E8-2ED2-4ABE-8317-C6CFB385BD2D.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="384" /></a></p>
<p>Hong Kong’s national airline Cathay Pacific was the subject of a data breach to its IT systems, jeopardising personal information of up to 9.4 million passengers.</p>
<p>The company said that it had no evidence that the information seized had been misused, nor that any travel or loyalty profiles were accessed in full.</p>
<p><strong>Ticketmaster</strong></p>
<p>Ticket sales giant Ticketmaster identified a breach in June, which may have affected up to 40,000 UK customers.</p>
<p>The source of the attack was understood to have come from malware in a third-party customer support product from Inbenta Technologies.</p>
<p><strong>Dixons Carphone</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/AC82B37E-BDDD-4674-AA53-74D60AEB0880.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-123219" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/AC82B37E-BDDD-4674-AA53-74D60AEB0880.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="417" /></a></p>
<p>In June, Dixons Carphone, which owns Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse stores, found that some of its systems had been accessed in 2017.</p>
<p>The firm initially thought that 1.2 million personal data records – including customer names, emails and addresses – were impacted by the incident but further investigations found that 5.9 million customer bank card details and 10 million personal data records may have been hacked.</p>
<p><strong>British Airways</strong></p>
<p>Airline BA was the victim of a data hack in August, which forced customers to cancel credit cards as a precaution.</p>
<p>Of the 380,000 payment card details first announced, the company later found that only 244,000 were affected and that it had no verified cases of fraud.</p>
<p><strong>Superdrug</strong></p>
<p>Superdrug was targeted by hackers in August, who contacted the retailer claiming to have the details of about 20,000 customers.</p>
<p>The perpetrators provided information of 386 accounts to try to prove they had sensitive information, but Superdrug heard nothing more from them after it refused to pay the ransom.</p>
<p><strong>Butlin’s</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/11A8B640-1AE4-4F76-9359-7B9D7D69BBC6.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-123220" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/11A8B640-1AE4-4F76-9359-7B9D7D69BBC6.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="303" /></a></p>
<p>British seaside resort Butlin’s announced that up to 34,000 guest records may have been obtained in August.</p>
<p>Data including names, home addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers were at risk but no financial details were accessed, the company said at the time.</p>
<p><strong>Marriott</strong></p>
<p>Hotel chain Marriott suffered the year’s biggest breach, after uncovering one of its systems containing up to 500 million guests’ details had been jeopardised.</p>
<p>The breach hit the system managing its Starwood portfolio, which includes Trump Turnberry in Ayrshire as well as London’s Park Lane Sheraton Grand, Westbury Mayfair and Le Meridien Piccadilly.</p>
<p>Information including passport numbers, dates of birth, names, addresses and phone numbers were contained in the database, which was attacked in 2014 but only came to light in November 2018.</p>
<p> ;</p>
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