A byte out of crime

Visual form

Bubble chart.

Layout / body structure

The page uses a single horizontal timeline with major cyber incidents plotted across years from left to right. The reading order follows the line chronologically and then moves up and down into the labels attached to each bubble.

What is being compared

It compares major cyber incidents over time, showing both the timing of attacks and the relative scale or severity of each event.

Measurement system

Time runs along the horizontal axis by year, and bubble size encodes the scale of the incident. The labels identify the breached organization and the size of the compromise, often in millions or billions of records or dollars.

Visible structure inside the graphic

A chain of blue circles sits on a single timeline, with small and large bubbles alternating across the sequence. Text annotations extend above and below the line to name events such as major government, healthcare, financial, and technology breaches.

Main takeaway from the visual

The chart shows that cyberattacks in financial services and adjacent sectors have become both more frequent and more severe over time, with especially large incidents clustering in the later years of the chart.

Key standout values or extremes

The biggest bubbles appear in the mid-to-late portion of the timeline where some events are labeled in the billions of breached records or other very large incident totals. Earlier years contain smaller circles and fewer outsized events by comparison.

Controls / sequence, when applicable

This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.

Companion media, when applicable

There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.