The latest data breach study by data breach tracking group Identity Theft Resource Center shows that data breaches in the United States have topped 900 with over 16.8 million records affected.
As usual, business and healthcare account for the top two industries hit hardest by these breaches.
As usual, business and healthcare account for the top two industries hit hardest by these breaches.
- Businesses accounted for 476 total breaches (52.9%) with over 9.2 million records affected.
- Healthcare accounted for 228 total breaches (25.3%) with over 3.5 million records affected.
- Educational accounted for 96 total breaches (10.7%) with over 1.1 million records affected.
- Financial accounted for 56 total breaches (6.2%) with over 2.7 million records affected.
- Gov/Military accounted for 44 total breaches (4.9%) with over 216 thousand records affected.
It should be noted that this trend is well below the pace of last year, which set a record with 4,149 data breaches with over 4.2 billion records affected. This was mainly due to numerous large-scale breaches including "94 reported incidents exposing at least one million records each, and 37 incidents exposing ten million or more records."
It should also be noted that the majority of data breaches go unreported. This is due to numerous influencing factors including embarrassing publicity, losses not worth reporting, responsibility/job security issues, undetected attacks, lack of cybersecurity insurance, and more.
Healthcare attacks appear to be on the rise, as they only accounted for 9% of data breaches in 2016, yet currently account for 25% of all data breaches in 2017. Some of the top healthcare data breaches of 2017 include Anthem BlueCross BlueShield, UC Davis Health, BUPA, Washington State University, and more.
Last month, another large-scale data breach was reported by Verizon. Millions of records were accessed, each record with customer information including the customer’s name, mobile number, and account PIN, along with their home address, email address, and their Verizon account balance.
Interested in reading about how data breaches affect the UK? Head over to TechWorld and read about the "22 of the most infamous data breaches affecting the UK"
It should also be noted that the majority of data breaches go unreported. This is due to numerous influencing factors including embarrassing publicity, losses not worth reporting, responsibility/job security issues, undetected attacks, lack of cybersecurity insurance, and more.
Healthcare attacks appear to be on the rise, as they only accounted for 9% of data breaches in 2016, yet currently account for 25% of all data breaches in 2017. Some of the top healthcare data breaches of 2017 include Anthem BlueCross BlueShield, UC Davis Health, BUPA, Washington State University, and more.
Last month, another large-scale data breach was reported by Verizon. Millions of records were accessed, each record with customer information including the customer’s name, mobile number, and account PIN, along with their home address, email address, and their Verizon account balance.
Interested in reading about how data breaches affect the UK? Head over to TechWorld and read about the "22 of the most infamous data breaches affecting the UK"