In 2012, what connected Twitter with Apple, AOL, Google, Hotmail, LinkedIn and Yahoo?

Online security – or rather, on occasion, a distinct lack of it.

Each of these firms, alongside others such as Zappos and Formspring, suffered pretty serious security breaches in the past 12 months, with tens of thousands of Twitter usernames and passwords compromised back in May.

But Twitter’s problems were a relative drop in the ocean compared to LinkedIn, Apple and Zappos, each of whom had security exploitations that exposed millions of accounts.

This infographic takes a closer look at what has been a pretty rough year for online security.

(Source: Frostbox. Padlock image via Shutterstock.)