syscfg@research:~$ cat timeline.json | jq . | less
Cybersecurity Timeline Major incidents, breaches, and events from 1988 to the present. The history of how digital conflict evolved from curious students to nation-state warfare.
63 events documented · 47 critical · 1986 - 2025
The timeline is a reference summary compiled from public reporting and reviewed on 16 October 2026 against the pages listed below. Entries or figures those pages did not support were corrected, softened or removed; anything not listed there has not been independently checked, so confirm key figures and dates before relying on them.
Sources checked (9) All Malware Breach Hardware Underground Legislation Exploit
2025 Aug BreachForums Seized (Again) Third iteration went offline; seizure claimed, not confirmed Underground +Feb Bybit $1.5B Crypto Theft Lazarus Group - largest theft in crypto history Breach [CRITICAL] +
2024 Nov Scattered Spider Arrests Five COM members charged in US Underground +Sep Salt Typhoon Telecom Breach China inside US telecom networks for one to two years Breach [CRITICAL] +Jul CrowdStrike Falcon Update Outage 8.5 million Windows systems crashed globally Breach [CRITICAL] +Jun Snowflake Credential Campaign AT&T, Ticketmaster, 165 organizations Breach [CRITICAL] +Mar XZ Utils Backdoor Two-year supply chain infiltration caught by accident Exploit [CRITICAL] +Feb LockBit Disrupted Operation Cronos Underground [CRITICAL] +Feb Change Healthcare Ransomware Largest healthcare breach in US history Breach [CRITICAL] +
2023 Sep MGM and Caesars Ransomware Attacks Scattered Spider takes down Las Vegas via a help desk call Breach [CRITICAL] +May Volt Typhoon Disclosed China pre-positioned in US critical infrastructure Breach [CRITICAL] +Jan Hive Ransomware Takedown FBI inside Hive for 7 months Breach +
2022 Sep Uber & Rockstar Hacks LAPSUS$ teenager strikes while on bail Breach +Feb Viasat Hack Ukraine satellite disrupted before invasion Breach [CRITICAL] +Feb Conti Ransomware Leaks Internal chats, salaries, operator manuals exposed Underground [CRITICAL] +
2021 Dec Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228) Among the most severe vulnerabilities ever - CVSS 10.0 Exploit [CRITICAL] +Dec LAPSUS$ Campaign Begins Teenagers breach Microsoft, Nvidia, Okta via MFA fatigue Breach [CRITICAL] +Jul Kaseya VSA / REvil Attack Supply chain ransomware hits 1,500 businesses on July 4th Malware [CRITICAL] +Jul Pegasus Project Published NSO Group spyware found on journalists, heads of state Breach [CRITICAL] +Jun Operation Trojan Shield (ANOM) FBI secretly operated criminal encrypted phone network for 3 years Underground [CRITICAL] +Apr Colonial Pipeline DarkSide ransomware shuts US pipeline Breach [CRITICAL] +
2020 Dec SolarWinds / Sunburst Nation-state supply chain attack Breach [CRITICAL] +Jul Twitter Bitcoin Hack 130 verified accounts hijacked via vishing Breach [CRITICAL] +
2019 BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) Critical Windows RDP zero-day Exploit [CRITICAL] +
2018 Jan Spectre and Meltdown CPU architecture flaws affect every computer since 1995 Exploit [CRITICAL] +SIM Swapping Era Telecom fraud goes mainstream Breach +
2017 Oct KRACK Attack WPA2 broken Exploit +Jul AlphaBay Seized Dark web market taken down Underground [CRITICAL] +Jun NotPetya $10B - most destructive attack ever Malware [CRITICAL] +May Equifax Breach 147 million SSNs stolen via unpatched Struts Breach [CRITICAL] +May WannaCry Up to $4 billion in estimated damage Malware [CRITICAL] +
2016 Oct Mirai Botnet / Dyn Attack IoT DDoS knocked out the internet Malware [CRITICAL] +Aug Shadow Brokers NSA arsenal leaked Exploit [CRITICAL] +Jun DNC / Podesta Hack GRU operation shapes 2016 election Breach [CRITICAL] +Feb Bangladesh Bank SWIFT Heist Lazarus Group steals $81M via SWIFT Breach [CRITICAL] +
2015 Jul Ashley Madison Breach 37 million users exposed, extortion wave follows Breach [CRITICAL] +Jul Hacking Team Breach Surveillance vendor's client list and zero-days exposed Breach +Apr OPM Breach Discovered Chinese state-linked hackers steal 21.5M US clearance records Breach [CRITICAL] +
2014 Nov Sony Pictures Hack Entire studio wiped by North Korea Breach [CRITICAL] +Sep Yahoo Breach (500M accounts) Largest breach at the time; disclosed 2 years later Breach [CRITICAL] +Apr Heartbleed (CVE-2014-0160) 17% of HTTPS servers leak private keys Exploit [CRITICAL] +
2013 Nov Target POS Breach 40M cards stolen via HVAC contractor Breach [CRITICAL] +Oct Silk Road Seized The first dark web market falls Underground [CRITICAL] +Sep CryptoLocker Ransomware GameOver Zeus delivers first major crypto ransomware Malware [CRITICAL] +Jun Edward Snowden / PRISM NSA global surveillance architecture revealed Breach [CRITICAL] +Feb Mandiant APT1 Report PLA Unit 61398 publicly named for 7 years of cyber espionage Breach [CRITICAL] +Jan Carbanak Banking Campaign Begins $1 billion stolen from 100+ banks Malware [CRITICAL] +
2011 May LulzSec / Anonymous Hacking for the lulz Underground +Mar RSA SecurID Breach Seed values for 40M two-factor tokens stolen Breach [CRITICAL] +
2010 Dec Operation Payback Anonymous attacks Mastercard, Visa, PayPal Underground +Jan Operation Aurora China hacks Google, 20+ companies Breach [CRITICAL] +Stuxnet First cyberweapon against physical infrastructure Malware [CRITICAL] +
2008 Oct Conficker Worm 9 to 15 million machines infected; never fully activated Malware [CRITICAL] +RBN Takedown Russian Business Network dismantled Underground +
2007 Apr Estonia DDoS DDoS wave against a whole country, blamed on Russian actors Breach [CRITICAL] +
2004 Cabir Worm First mobile malware Malware +
2003 SQL Slammer Fastest-spreading worm ever Malware +
2000 May ILOVEYOU / Love Bug 50M infections in 10 days Malware [CRITICAL] +
1999 Mar Melissa Virus Mass-mailing macro virus Malware +
1998 Moonlight Maze First confirmed state cyber espionage against US military networks Breach [CRITICAL] +
1995 Feb Kevin Mitnick Arrested Most wanted hacker caught via cellular triangulation Underground +
1988 Morris Worm First major internet worm Malware +
1986 The Cuckoo's Egg Clifford Stoll traces Soviet hacker via 75-cent discrepancy Underground +