Home / Monthly reports / August 2026
Outages & Breaches: August 2026 in numbers
3 significant outages (0 critical) and 7 data breaches (6 critical) were logged in August 2026. The largest breach by records was McKesson (284M claimed). The longest outage with a known duration was GitHub (6.4 hours). The most common outage cause was network (1 of 3). 1 of the incidents mainly affected the UK.
Outages3▼ 2 vs July
Critical outages0wide impact
Downtime tracked9 hacross 2 outages with a known duration
Breaches7same as July
Critical breaches6sensitive data at scale
Records exposed48.8Mconfirmed or company-reported
Further claimed284Mattacker claims, unverified
Outage causes
Named attackers
Most significant incidents
- 28 Aug 2026McKesson breach, with 284 million patient records claimedMcKesson · breach · ShinyHunters · 284M claimed
- 27 Aug 2026MAG customer data accessed: 8.7 millionManchester Airports Group · breach · Unknown · 8.7M records
- 26 Aug 2026Carhartt data stolen, 12.9 million credible recordsCarhartt · breach · ShinyHunters · 12.9M records
- 26 Aug 2026Baylor Genetics breach exposes 2.8 millionBaylor Genetics · breach · Unknown · 2.8M records
- 13 Aug 2026Polish healthcare system breach hits nearly 19 millionMyDr (Poland) · breach · Unknown · 19M records
- 7 Aug 2026Healthcare data centre breach affects 3.8 millionUnlimited Technology Systems · breach · Unknown · 3.8M records
- 20 Aug 2026Fibre maintenance disrupts 33 Google Cloud productsGoogle Cloud us-west1 · outage · Network · 2.4 hours
- 17 Aug 2026GitHub degraded for over six hoursGitHub · outage · Capacity · 6.4 hours
All 3 outages
- 20 Aug 2026Fibre maintenance disrupts 33 Google Cloud productsGoogle Cloud us-west1 · outage · Network · 2.4 hours
- 17 Aug 2026GitHub degraded for over six hoursGitHub · outage · Capacity · 6.4 hours
- 7 Aug 2026Cloudflare logs 13 incidents in eight days, including an R2 failureCloudflare · outage · Software / storage
All 7 data breaches
- 28 Aug 2026McKesson breach, with 284 million patient records claimedMcKesson · breach · ShinyHunters · 284M claimed
- 27 Aug 2026MAG customer data accessed: 8.7 millionManchester Airports Group · breach · Unknown · 8.7M records
- 26 Aug 2026Carhartt data stolen, 12.9 million credible recordsCarhartt · breach · ShinyHunters · 12.9M records
- 26 Aug 2026Baylor Genetics breach exposes 2.8 millionBaylor Genetics · breach · Unknown · 2.8M records
- 14 Aug 2026RingCentral social engineering exposes 1.6 million accountsRingCentral · breach · ShinyHunters · 1.6M records
- 13 Aug 2026Polish healthcare system breach hits nearly 19 millionMyDr (Poland) · breach · Unknown · 19M records
- 7 Aug 2026Healthcare data centre breach affects 3.8 millionUnlimited Technology Systems · breach · Unknown · 3.8M records
2026 year to date
Incidents YTD85January to August 2026
Outages YTD28significant outages
Breaches YTD57data breaches
Critical YTD40outages and breaches
Records exposed YTD272Mconfirmed or company-reported
| Month | Outages | Breaches | Critical | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 3 | 7 | 5 | 10 |
| Feb | 6 | 7 | 5 | 23 |
| Mar | 2 | 7 | 5 | 32 |
| Apr | 3 | 7 | 4 | 42 |
| May | 4 | 8 | 6 | 54 |
| Jun | 2 | 7 | 4 | 63 |
| Jul | 5 | 7 | 5 | 75 |
| Aug | 3 | 7 | 6 | 85 |
| Total | 28 | 57 | 40 | 85 |
Cite this
Nuffield Consulting, “Outages & Breaches: August 2026 in numbers”, The Daily Tech Wire,published August 2026. https://techwire.nuffieldconsulting.com/reports/2026-08/ (retrieved 15 Nov 2026).
The underlying data for every month is in the CSV download.