2020 had its share of memorable hacks and breaches. Here are the top 10

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2020 was a tough year for a lot of reasons, not least of which were breaches and hacks that visited pain on end users, customers, and the organizations that were targeted. The ransomware menace dominated headlines, with an endless stream of compromises hitting schools, governments, and private companies as criminals demanded ransoms in the millions of dollars. There was a steady stream of data breaches as well. Several mass account takeovers made appearances, too.

What follows are some of the highlights. For good measure, we’re also throwing in a couple notable hacks that, while not actively used in the wild, were impressive beyond measure or pushed the boundaries of security.

The SolarWinds hack

2020 saved the most devastating breach for last. Hackers that multiple public officials say are backed by the Russian government started by compromising the software distribution system of SolarWinds, the maker of network monitoring software that tens of thousands of organizations use. The hackers then used their position to deliver a backdoored update to about 18,000 customers. From there, the hackers had the ability to steal, destroy, or modify data on the networks of any of those customers.

It’s going to take time for investigators to assess the damage. That’s because not everyone who installed the malicious update received follow-on attacks. So far, security firm FireEye has said the hackers sought information about its government customers and also stole red-team tools used to test customers’ security defenses. US officials, meanwhile, have said that dozens of Treasury Department email accounts have also been hacked.

While the

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