Marriott data breach exposes over 5M people

Data breaches can still happen even in the middle of a pandemic. Hackers can take advantage of any vulnerability, like a health crisis, loopholes in institutions' servers, or flawed security protections to steal your most personal and sensitive information: credit and debit card numbers, Social Security data, your birth date and maybe even where you live.

Though you can't foresee an attack, you can certainly take steps to protect yourself from further harm, by avoiding fraudulent scams and being vigilant about monitoring your credit and credit card charges.

Read more: 2019 Data Breach Hall of Shame: These were the biggest data breaches of the year

Here are some, though not all, of the biggest breaches the US has experienced in recent history.

When: Disclosed by Marriott International on March 31.

Number of people affected: Approximately 5.2 million guests.

What happened: Marriott international said that at the end of February, it spotted that an "unexpected amount" of guest information may've been accessed with the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property. The exposed information may include names, addresses, emails, phone numbers and birthdays. Loyalty account details and information like room preferences may also have been breached. This is the second major incident to impact the hotel in the last two year years.

When: Disclosed to public early Feb. 2020

Number of people affected: More than 10.7 million guests

What happened: CNET's sister site, ZDNet, reported that the personal information of over 10 million former MGM resort guests on a hacking forum. The information that was shared reportedly came from a security incident last year, MGM security team members told ZDNet. The leaked info included details like customers full names, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and birth dates.

MGM told ZDNet that it was confident no financial, payment card or password data was involved. The hotel chain reportedly notified all affected guests and has since improved its network security.

MGM's hotels include the Bellagio, Aria, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Park MGM, Mirage, New York New York, Luxor and Excalibur in Las Vegas.