These Internet Giants Surprisingly Still Dodge Hackers

These guys are obvious hacking targets but have never been seriously hacked, despite reports to the contrary. Of course, we have to take their word for it.
These Internet Giants Surprisingly Still Dodge Hackers
A student from an engineering school attends, on Meudon, west of Paris, overnight on March 16, 2013, the first edition of the Steria Hacking Challenge. AFP PHOTO / THOMAS SAMSON Photo credit should read THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images
Petr Svab
Petr Svab
reporter
|Updated:

In this day and age, nearly everything can be hacked. Forget about your computer and think about your car, your TV, webcam, bank account, health records, even your heart implant or baby monitor.

Yet there are some obvious targets for hacking that, as far as we know, fend off hackers like an angry bulldog.

PayPal

That’s right. Have you ever heard of a PayPal data breach? There have been some security gaps discovered over the years and individual accounts were probably highjacked, but no reports suggest the electronic payment service ever lost your sensitive data.

It is worth noting though that PayPal is not a bank and thus not subject to such stringent reporting. If there were any breaches, maybe just weren’t big enough to force PayPal to tell us.

Google

You may be rightfully skeptical of this example. Technically, Google was hacked. The communist regime in China broke into Gmail in 2010 targeting dissidents. But according to the company only two email accounts were compromised. We can let this one slide, can’t we?

But you may have also heard that just last fall five million Gmail passwords ended up on a Russian Bitcoin forum. Well, Google said nobody hacked them. The data were probably stolen from other websites and users’ computers.

(Torsten Silz/AFP/Getty Images)
Torsten Silz/AFP/Getty Images
Petr Svab
Petr Svab
reporter
Petr Svab is a reporter covering New York. Previously, he covered national topics including politics, economy, education, and law enforcement.
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