If we look back at the year of 2026 so far, it might be easy to see cybersecurity falling by the wayside, as much of the world’s attention remains on wars raging, the climate worsening, and we’re seemingly just one dodgy sneeze away from the next global pandemic. But cybersecurity remains a powerful barometer of what’s happening on the world stage, with botnets powering digital efforts to undermine the West and governments weaponizing citizens’ data and civilian infrastructure against entire populations of people. All the while, financially motivated hackers seek massive ransom payouts, as they spark disruption and occasional destruction across governments and private industries. As we’re halfway through this already horrendous year of digital attacks and hybrid warfare, we look at some of the worst hacks and breaches so far, and how they might affect us going forward. Questions remain over DOGE’s massive swipe of Social Security data A year on, after operatives with the Elon Musk-led band of government destroyers known as the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE) swept through and dismantled federal agencies from the inside out, we’re still learning about the data lapses that happened under their watch. After DOGE entered the Social Security Administration, it remains unclear as to what happened with some of the nation’s most sensitive data, as lawsuits battle on in federal court. The most alarming whistleblower’s claim is that DOGE uploaded a live copy of the Social Security database to an unsecured third-party server, leading to a scramble to understand what was stored in it. This database allegedly contained the Social Security numbers and associated personal information of most living Americans. In court filings, the Social Security Administration doesn’t know for sure what was on the server, but said that the DOGE signed an agreement with an outside political advocacy group under the guise of finding evidence of voter fraud, something that President Trump continues to claim without any evidence. The fears are that the database could be misused to target Americans for spurious reasons. Two of the top House Democrats investigating some of DOGE’s activities at the Social Security Administration said that the exposure of the government’s Social Security database “could very well be the largest data breach in our nation’s history.” Image Credits:Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images via AFP / Getty Images Hackers are increasingly targeting water systems and energy grids A rash of cyberattacks across Europe targeting civilian energy and water supplies, like power plants and water dams, has set a troubling trend of late. Several hacks attributed to (or at least in part blamed on) Russia have risked real-world harm to communities and populations. Poland’s energy grid was targeted with computer-destroying malware at the tail end of last year, as well as a Swedish thermal plant and a Norwegian dam that spilled swimming pools’ worth of water. Hackers targeted Poland again earlier this year, this time its water treatment plants, showing that Russia’s hybrid war antagonism continues to extend beyond the digital realm. Now, thanks to the recent war between the U.S. and Israel against Iran, there are warnings that Iranian hackers are targeting critical infrastructure in the United States. This includes privately owned water utilities, which remain a soft target for hackers, often lacking basic cybersecurity protections. Iranian government hackers struck Stryker with a destructive device hack Speaking of Iran, a cyberattack on a U.S. medical tech company, Stryker, in March saw Iranian hackers break in and remotely wipe tens of thousands of employee devices in one fell swoop, causing widespread disruption to the company’s operations for several days. The breach was a marked shift in Iranian hacking tactics at a time of ongoing war in the Middle East, with Iran moving from its typical focus of espionage and hack-and-leak operations in aid of the country’s political gains, toward actively causing destructive hacks in apparent retaliation for the war. The U.S. government attributed the hacking group behind the breach to an arm of Iranian intelligence. The breach ended up having a material impact on Stryker’s first-quarter earnings after regaining control of its systems. Instructure among ShinyHunters’ disruptive hacking campaigns The ShinyHunters continued their hacking campaigns, targeting dozens of companies with simple but highly effective voice phishing techniques. The English-speaking hackers are adept at tricking companies into turning over access to their internal systems by pretending to be IT support, or conversely, an employee who forgot their password. Few know better than the toll a hack from the ShinyHunters can have than education tech giant Instructure. The hackers breached the company’s flagship learning management system Canvas to steal private data and
