In 2013 we saw all kinds of technological advancements, what with smartphones and tablets asserting their dominance over the PC, the Internet of Things rapidly becoming a reality, next-generation games consoles taking our living rooms by storm just some of the highlights. But this year wasn’t entirely rosy, as hackers showed just how risky this new ‘smart’ era can be, carrying out a series of attacks on big names in the tech industry.

In the infographic “HOT DATA: Has Your Data Been Compromised?” created by WhoIsHostingThis?, it’s revealed how virtually all the leading tech companies, including Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and others fell victim to hackers.  Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Zendesk fell under attack in February in what security experts believe to be an attack of the same nature which was used to infiltrate Twitter back in January.

Almost 250,000 Twitter accounts were compromised because of a vulnerability in Oracle’s Java plug-in for browsers. This allowed hackers to access user data such as people’s usernames, email addresses, session tokens, and encrypted/salted versions of passwords.

Twitter was quick to shut down the live attack, reset user passwords and revoke session tokens for accounts believed to have been infected.

Evernote, the popular note-taking app, also fell victim to unscrupulous hackers who compromised the security of its nearly 50 million users’ data.  In this incident, the weakness was determined to have been the MD5 cryptographic algorithm Evernote used to hash user’s passwords before storing them.  MD5 is considered to be a poor choice for securing passwords as it is easy to crack.  Evernote was quick to reset user passwords and blocked suspicious activities.

Because of these attacks, most services now have two-factor authentication which requires the use of a phone to verify the user.  Though this might seem slightly irritating for many users, it adds another layer of security so accounts won’t easily be compromised.

Who’s to blame?

If you’re wondering who has been behind these attacks, computer security company Mandiant points the finger at a secret Chinese military unit.  According to the infographic, a quarter of the companies that are members of the American Chamber of Commerce in China have been victims of data theft, and 26 percent of its members that responded to an annual survey stated that their trade secrets or proprietary data has been compromised in their China operations.  Because of the cyber attacks, Beijing and Washington’s relationship has become increasingly strained.

It’s also believed that Chinese hackers were responsible for some high-profile attacks against US media organizations.  The New York Times was attacked multiple times after it reported that Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao accumulated its wealth through business dealings. The Wall Street Journal found itself in the same situation, when Jeremy Page, a reporter in the WSJ’s Beijing Bureau, wrote articles about the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood in a scandal that helped bring down Chinese politician Bo Xilai.