1.4B Data Records Compromised in 2016
March 28, 2017
A
Breach Level Index revealed that 1,792 data breaches led to almost 1.4
billion data records being compromised worldwide during 2016, an
increase of 86% compared to 2015. Identity theft was the leading type of
data breach in 2016, accounting for 59% of all data breaches. In
addition, 52% of the data breaches in 2016 did not disclose the number
of compromised records at the time they were reported.
The Breach Level Index is a global database that tracks data breaches
and measures their severity based on multiple dimensions, including the
number of records compromised, the type of data, the source of the
breach, how the data was used, and whether or not the data was
encrypted. By assigning a severity score to each breach, the Breach
Level Index provides a comparative list of breaches, distinguishing data
breaches that are a not serious versus those that are truly impactful
(scores run 1-10). According to the Breach Level Index, more than 7
billion data records have been exposed since 2013 when the index began
benchmarking publicly disclosed data breaches. Breaking it down that is
over 3 million records compromised every day or roughly 44 records every
second.
Last year, the account access based attack on AdultFriend Finder
exposing 400 million records scored a 10 in terms of severity on the
Breach Level Index. Other notable breaches in 2016 included Fling (BLI:
9.8), Philippines' Commission on Elections (COMELEC) (BLI: 9.8), 17
Media (BLI: 9.7) and Dailymotion (BLI: 9.5). In fact the top 10 breaches
in terms of severity accounted for over half of all compromised records.
In 2016, Yahoo! reported two major data breaches involving 1.5 billion
user accounts, but are not accounted for in the BLI's 2016 numbers since
they occurred in 2013 and 2014.
"The Breach Level Index highlights four major cybercriminal trends over
the past year. Hackers are casting a wider net and are using
easily-attainable account and identity information as a starting point
for high value targets. Clearly, fraudsters are also shifting from
attacks targeted at financial organizations to infiltrating large data
bases such as entertainment and social media sites. Lastly, fraudsters
have been using encryption to make breached data unreadable, then hold
it for ransom and decrypting once they are paid", said Jason Hart, Vice
President and Chief Technology Officer for Data Protection at Gemalto.
Data Breaches by Type
In 2016, identity theft was the leading type of data breach, accounting
for 59% of all data breaches, up by 5% from 2015. The second most
prevalent type of breach in 2016 is account access based breaches. While
the incidence of this type of data breach decreased by 3%, it made up 54
% of all breached records, which is an increase of 336% from the
previous year. This highlights the cybercriminal trend from financial
information attacks to bigger databases with large volumes of personally
identifiable information. Another notable data point is the nuisance
category with an increase of 101% accounting for 18% of all breached
records up 1474% since 2015.
Data Breaches by Source
Malicious outsiders were the leading source of data breaches, accounting
for 68% of breaches, up from 13% in 2015. The number of records breached
in malicious outsider attacks increased by 286% from 2015. Hacktivist
data breaches also increased in 2016 by 31%, but only account for 3% of
all breaches that occurred last year.
Data Breaches by Industry
Across industries, the technology sector had the largest increase in
data breaches in 2016. Breaches rose 55%, but only accounted for 11% of
all breaches last year. Almost 80% of the breaches in this sector were
account access and identity theft related. They also represented 28% of
compromised records in 2016, an increase of 278% from 2015.
The healthcare industry accounted for 28% of data breaches, rising 11%
compared to 2015. However, the number of compromised data records in
healthcare decreased by 75% since 2015. Education saw a 5% decrease in
data breaches between 2015 and 2016 and a drop of 78% in compromised
data records. Government accounted for 15% of all data breaches in 2016.
However the number of compromised data records increased 27% from 2015.
Financial services companies accounted for 12% of all data breaches, a
23% decline compared to the previous year.
All industries listed in the 'Other' category represented 13% of data
breaches and 36% of compromised data records. In this category, the
overall number of data breaches decreased by 29%, while the number of
compromised records jumped by 300% since 2015. Social media and
entertainment industry related data breaches made up the majority.
Last
year 4.2% of the total number of breach incidents involved data that had
been encrypted in part or in full, compared to 4% in 2015. In some of
these instances, the password was encrypted, but other information was
left unencrypted. However of the almost 1.4 billion records compromised,
lost or stolen in 2016, only 6% were encrypted partially or in full
(compared to 2% in 2015).
"Knowing exactly where their data resides and who has access to it will
help enterprises outline security strategies based on data categories
that make the most sense for their organizations. Encryption and
authentication are no longer 'best practices' but necessities. This is
especially true with new and updated government mandates like the
upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, U.S
state-based and APAC country-based breach disclosure laws. But it's also
about protecting your business' data integrity, so the right decisions
can be made based on accurate information, therefore protecting your
reputation and your profits." |