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2024 is coming to a close, and while all of us here at Tom's Guide want everyone to have the absolute best online safety (whether this is using the best VPN or using unique passwords for every account), it's also important to recognise that sometimes online safety is a bit trickier than this. So, it's time to look at some times when cyber security has gone wrong. If you (like me) like to keep up with all the cyber attacks from across the globe, it might not surprise you that it's been a big year for data breaches. From July to September alone, more than 422 million records were exposed through various hacks, cyber attacks and network vulnerability exploitations. The impact of data breaches is always widespread, with victims more likely to be victims of other cyber attacks like phishing, or may even get their identity stolen, but this year has been particularly devastating for the businesses that suffered them. The cost of data breaches was the highest it's ever been, with the global average cost of a data breach being $4.88 million . It would take far too long to list every single data breach that happened this year, so instead I've put together a list of the top 10 most impactful data breaches of this year. 10. Life360 attacked by anonymous hacker If you use Life 360 to keep an eye on your loved ones, unfortunately you now may have more eyes on you than you bargained for. Around half a million users of the family networking app had their data leaked to the dark web after a hacker abused a flaw in Life 360's login API. The hacker, who referred to themself as "emo," posted a database containing the emails, phone numbers and full names of 442,519 people to a dark web hacking forum. "Emo" gave details of how the breach happened, but claimed to not be the perpetrator of the breach. Instead, the anonymous poster simply said: "Credit to the original breacher for this leak yk who u are". 9. Millions of Discord messages leaked Discord is one of the most popular messaging services, with over 200 million monthly active users. It's not exactly surprising that it would be the target of a data breach, then, considering the sheer amount of data shared on the platform every single day. The instant messaging and VoIP platform suffered a data breach in April of this year. The hackers responsible for the attack and subsequent data leak exploited a vulnerability in its website code, and through this accessed Discord's data. In total, the Discord data breach exposed roughly 4.2 billion Discord messages from 256 million users. That's a whole lot of memes, DMs and community servers exposed. 8. FBCS and the rapidly growing data leak In a data breach that just kept getting worse as time went on, Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS) was breached in February of this year. The breach took place after a hacker gained unauthorized access to the organisation's servers. It was initially thought that the data of 1.9 million people had been stolen in the hack, but this was then raised to 3.2 million in May, and then 4.2 million in July. The data stolen included names, addresses, driver's license numbers and social security numbers, as well as information relating to customers' medical history. This included provider information, information related to medical claims, clinical information (e.g. conditions or diagnosis, treatment information and medications) and health insurance information. 7. Double data leaks for AT&T It was a bad year for AT&T, as it was the victim of not one but two different data breaches this year. In March, a hack was discovered after the personal data of 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former customers was posted to the dark web. While AT&T initially denied that the data posted to the hacking forum was stolen from their servers, they eventually admitted that it was their data. Then in July, AT&T informed their customers that hackers had stolen a cache of data containing the phone numbers and call records of 110 million people , or "nearly all" its customers. AT&T has not yet made public how either of these hacks happened. 6. Disney targeted by furry hackers Another company to suffer multiple data breaches this year was Disney, resulting in a huge amount of corporate data being stolen. The first data breach Disney suffered was in June of this year, with 2.5GB of Club Penguin and corporate data leaked on a 4chan message board after being stolen from the company's Confluence server. Then, in July, notorious furry hacking gang NullBulge stole 1.2TB of data from Disney after the group breached Disney's Slack platform. According to the Wall Street Journal, the information stolen included 44 million internal Slack messages, 18,800 spreadsheets and 13,000 PDFs. 5. Dell suffers brute-force cyber attack Computer software company Dell was another company to suffer a widespread breach following a targeted cyber attack. In May, Dell suffered a brute force attack to its systems, meaning the hackers inputted potentially thousands of passwords to find the right one. The hack targeted a Dell portal that contained customer information related to purchases and resulted in the breach of 49 million records. Among the data exposed were the names, addresses and order details of customers, although Dell claims no financial information was exposed in the hack. 4. Change Healthcare hack impacts a third of Americans In a breach that impacted a huge portion of Americans, health insurance technology provider Change Healthcare was hacked early this year. Roughly a third of Americans had their data compromised in February 2024 following the h ack of Change Healthcare . The hack was extensive, impacting a number of other health insurance companies and pharmacies. Orchestrated by ransomware gang APLHV (also known as BlackCat), the hack saw the sensitive data of around 100 million people exposed. The data stolen included social security numbers, medical records, patient diagnoses, passport numbers, health insurance plan data and billing information. 3. Billions of records exposed in National Public Data hack This shocking breach saw billions (that's right, billions ) of records in a single cyber attack. Early this year, online background check and fraud prevention service National Public Data suffered an extensive data breach that allegedly exposed 2.9 billion records . The information exposed included the names, social security numbers, mailing addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of 170 million people across the US, UK and Canada. The breach was caused by a hacker gaining access to National Public Data's systems in December 2023. This hacker then leaked data found on the system onto the dark web from April to the summer of 2024. 2. Millions of customers have data exposed in Ticketmaster breach Bad news for anyone who went to a gig this year, as Ticketmaster suffered a data breach that exposed the data of millions of customers. Ticketmaster was targeted by ransomware gang ShinyHunters in June of this year, who claimed to have stolen the data of more than 560 million customers. ShinyHunters posted about the data breach online, offering the data set for $500,000. ShinyHunters gained access to the data by stealing login details for Snowflake, Ticketmaster's cloud storage service. ShinyHunters also targeted more than 160 other Snowflake customers with similar data theft, including banking group Santander. 1. The Mother of All Breaches lives up to its name Considering the name, it's not surprising that the Mother of All Breaches (MOAB) is taking the number one spot. This massive data leak occurred in January 2024, and was a collection of 4,144 breaches that had taken place over several years, although researchers believed that there was new data included within the breach. Over 26 billion records from thousands of sources including Canva, Tencent, Venmo, Adobe, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Weibo, Dropbox and Telegram were exposed. The data leaked contained 12TB personal information, including login credentials like usernames and passwords, and other personal information.Six human smugglers arrested in connection to 2021 crash that killed dozens
LOS ANGELES , Dec. 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The SmallRig Awards kicked off the Global Filmmaker Talk series last night with a preview screening of Miguel Gomes' Grand Tour , co-presented by the Los Angeles screening series Acropolis Cinema. Grand Tour , which earned Miguel Gomes the Best Director prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, was screened at the Culver Theater in historic Culver City . The screening was followed by an engaging conversation with director Miguel Gomes and Acropolis Cinema founder Jordan Cronk , focusing on the nonfiction techniques Gomes employed in the film. This marked Miguel Gomes' first-ever appearance in Los Angeles . The event attracted a vibrant audience of cinephiles, emerging filmmakers, film critics, industry professionals, and Oscar voters, as Grand Tour is also Portugal's official selection for the Academy Awards. SmallRig Awards, launched this year by SmallRig—renowned for its affordable, compact, and versatile rigs for filmmakers, journalists, and photographers—aims to discover impactful films and videos addressing global social issues. Winners will receive significant cash prizes and the opportunity to secure financial backing from SmallRig for future projects. From now until December 31 , the SmallRig Awards is accepting entries of fiction or documentary films and videos under 40 minutes in length, featuring compelling stories that shed light on worldwide challenges, including but not limited to: Participants will compete for 22 awards, with cash prizes ranging from $800 to $12,000 . The award categories include: With the slogan "See It. Change It.," the SmallRig Awards are designed to encourage young filmmakers with limited resources to think creatively about how films of modest scale and budget can engage with universal issues through a variety of tools and storytelling techniques. "The SmallRig Awards are for socially conscious filmmakers," says SmallRig founder Zhou Yang . "We believe that images are very powerful. They allow people, behavior, and important moments to be seen." He continues: "While we support films that call for action on global issues and aim to create positive change, our focus is more on addressing issues constructively rather than taking a critical or activist approach." As for eligibility, Zhang points out that "the award isn't limited to films alone. It's also open to other types of works, such as journalistic videos or even PSA videos. We hope applicants will join us in making change happen." The jury panel will be led by Ruby Yang , Academy Award-winning filmmaker of The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006). Yang has also been honored with an Emmy, the DuPont-Columbia Journalism Award, FilmAid Asia's Humanitarian Award, the Global Health Council Media Award, and two IDA Pare Lorentz Award nominations. The jury will assess entries based on storytelling technique, production quality, and artistic creativity. For more information about the Smallrig Awards and submission guidelines, visit the official awards website at https://www.smallrig.com/activity/SmallRigAwards . Submissions can be made directly on the website or on Filmfreeway at https://filmfreeway.com/SmallRigAwards . View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/smallrig-awards-launches-the-global-filmmaker-talk-series-with-2024-cannes-best-director-miguel-gomes-302323241.html SOURCE Smallrig
PJ Dozier Waived By TimberwolvesFive years after it was nearly destroyed in a devastating fire, Notre Dame de Paris formally reopened on Saturday with a two-hour ceremony inside the famed cathedral’s gleaming, newly renovated interior. Global leaders and dignitaries including US President-elect Donald Trump , current US first lady Jill Biden, Elon Musk — the world’s richest man — and Britain’s Prince William joined French President Emmanuel Macron in a celebration that fused Catholic tradition with a dash of history and politics. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who attended last-minute and met with Trump and Macron at the Elysee palace earlier in the day, was welcomed to the church with a standing ovation. Some 170 bishops from around the world and priests from each of the 106 parishes in the Paris diocese were involved in the festivities, but Pope Francis did not attend. The pontiff instead sent a message, describing the cathedral’s reopening as a moment of “joy, celebration, and praise.” Inclement weather forced organizers to move the beginning of the service, which was supposed to take place on the redesigned forecourt in front of the cathedral, inside, where it was sheltered from the rain and the howls of nearly 40 mile-per-hour winds whipping against the building’s exterior. For the hundreds in attendance, the main show was not just in front of them, but all around. It was their first look inside the cherished UNESCO world heritage site following an estimated €700 million ($739 million) restoration. Centuries of grime has been wiped away to reveal an immaculate but aesthetically dissonant house of worship : a Gothic church that glistens. “The world will find again this cathedral rebuilt and embellished,” Macron said. “Tonight, together, we can share joy and pride.” The French president, who is mired in a political crisis following his government’s collapse on Wednesday , attempted to use the global spotlight on his country to showcase French soft power while also stoking pride and patriotism at home, as he did during the Paris Olympics. “We rediscovered what great nations can do: accomplish the impossible,” Macron told the more than 2,000-strong congregation. “The cathedral became a beautiful metaphor for what a nation is, and what the world should be,” he added. And like the Summer Games’ opening ceremony, a wet and windy central Paris felt once again as if it was on lockdown. French authorities brought in an extra 6,000 security officers for the event and closed Ile de la Cite, the island in the Seine River where Notre Dame is located, to everyone except residents, law enforcement and attendees. Saturday’s ceremony kicked off with the tolling of Notre Dame’s bells, located in the cathedral’s tower where Victor Hugo’s hunchbacked bell ringer Quasimodo lived in 1831 novel. Dozens of bishops gathered outside, their white robes whipping in the wind as Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich struck the closed cathedral doors with his crozier, an ornate staff, to officially mark the cathedral’s reopening. Through the doorframe, onlookers saw floodlights beam onto the downpour, providing a cinematic backdrop for Notre Dame’s spiritual leader as he led his clergy in from the cold for the first time since the blaze on April 15, 2019, after what investigators believe was an accident. By the time some 600 firefighters had doused the fire’s final flames, much of Notre Dame, a jewel of Gothic architecture, lay in ruins. The 315-foot spire that had graced the Parisian skyline since 1859 collapsed through the lead roof. “The forest,” an intricate, wooden lattice structure under the lead roof dating back to the 13th century, was completely destroyed. Centuries-old murals and priceless artifacts were covered in soot and lead. Macron had pledged to rebuild, asking that it be done in five years – an ambitious deadline that some experts panned as unrealistic. Yet after a herculean, 2,000-plus day effort involving more than 2,000 workers, “Our Lady of Paris” was ready to welcome visitors before the close of 2024. The world got its first glimpse inside on November 29 , when cameras followed Macron on his seventh and final visit to the construction site. There he met with various artisans and expressed his gratitude to the 1,000-plus craftspeople in attendance who helped him keep his promise. Organizers used Saturday’s ceremony to honor many of the firefighters who responded to the blaze. Dozens were paraded through the nave as guests applauded. Later, the cathedral’s grand organ – France’s largest instrument complete with its 8,000 pipes and five keyboards – was played once more. Following the ceremony, Macron hosted a dinner at the Elysee palace for the 50 or so heads of state and government in attendance. While Saturday’s events marked Notre Dame’s official reopening, the inaugural mass will take place Sunday morning. Masses will be held twice daily for eight days, along with special evening ceremonies. Many of these events will be open to the public but may require reservations in advance. CNN’s Saskya Vandoorne, Sérène Nourrison, Joseph Ataman, Christopher Lamb, Christian Edwards and Lauren Said-Moorhouse contributed to this report.
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