Notable consumer data breaches:

Oct. 2013: A Vietnam-based identity theft ring allegedly stole data for 500,000 Americans, then posted the information for sale on websites, including superget.info and findget.me.

June 2013: Hackers targeted 15 financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and E-Trade, as part of a nearly two-year-long scheme that involved hacking into customer accounts to steal at least $15 million.

  

Oct. 2012: Barnes & Noble said data thieves hacked into payment devices and may have stolen customer credit and debit card information at 63 of its stores, including 20 in California.

Jan. 2012: Zappos.com was the victim of a cyber attack by a hacker who accessed customer information on the company's internal network and systems. The company said the potentially exposed information included names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers and the last four digits of credit card numbers.

Oct. 2011: Groups of identity thieves took $13 million from consumers, banks and businesses through a worldwide credit card fraud operation that involved shopping sprees at local malls, officials said.

June 2011: Hackers broke into Citi's online account site and stole names, account numbers and email addresses of about 200,000 Citibank credit card customers in North America.

August 2008: The Bank of New York Mellon reported that a security breach involving the loss of backup data storage tapes affected about 8 million more individuals than originally thought.

  

August 2008: The FBI arrested a former Countrywide Financial Corp. employee and another man in an alleged scheme to steal and sell sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, of as many as 2 million mortgage applicants.

August 2008: Federal authorities said they had cracked the largest case of identity theft in U.S. history, charging 11 people in the theft of more than 40 million credit and debit card account numbers from computer systems at such major retailers as TJ Maxx and Barnes & Noble.

July 2008: Hackers broke into Citibank's network of ATMs inside 7-Eleven stores and stole customers' PIN codes, according to recent court filings that revealed a disturbing security hole in the most sensitive part of a banking record.

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