Data is quickly becoming one of the most important things in the modern world. The digital powerhouses that control data are perhaps the most powerful companies on the planet, sparking constant debates over anti-trust laws and data security.
As more businesses suffer severe data security breaches, the volume of affected data theft threats grows.
According to data breach statistics, hackers are strongly motivated by money to obtain data, and personal information is a highly coveted sort of data theft threat.
It’s also clear that, despite the fact that data breaches are getting more prevalent, businesses are still not well prepared.
According to Statista, over 52 million data breaches were reported by internet users worldwide during the second quarter of 2022, a 56 percent decrease from the previous quarter.
The biggest number of data breaches were found in the monitored time, approximately 125 million incidents, in the fourth quarter of 2020.
What Exactly is a Data Breach?
A data breach is a cyber assault in which sensitive, confidential, or otherwise protected data is improperly accessed or released.
Data breaches may occur in organizations of any size, from small firms to large multinationals.
Personal health information (PHI), personally identifiable information (PII), trade secrets, and other private information may be included in data breaches.
Personal information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and healthcare records are common data breach exposures, as is business information such as customer lists and source codes.
When someone who isn’t allowed to see or steal personal data does so, the company responsible for securing that information is said to have experienced a data breach.
How Do Data Breach Incidents Happen?
When data theft threats obtain illegal access to sensitive data, data breaches occur. This can be accomplished by physical access or remotely by circumventing data security safeguards.
Cybercrime is a lucrative sector that is growing because of the spread structure of the Internet and the ability to attack data security outside of their jurisdiction, which makes policing difficult.
There are ten typical methods for data breaches to occur:
- Vulnerabilities
- Attacks using ransomware
- SQL injection (SQLI)
- Spyware
- Phishing
- Passwords that aren’t safe
- Access controls that are broken or incorrectly set
- Physical data theft threats
- Denial of service (DoS)
- Breach by a third-party vendor
Related: How to Know If Your Data Has Been Breached?
Data Breach Statistics Till 2022
Some of the largest data breaches in history have occurred between 2005 and now. Data breaches have become increasingly widespread as governments and corporations transition from paper to digital storage.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse documented 136 data breaches in 2005 alone, and more than 4,500 data breaches have been made public since then.
However, it’s plausible to suppose that the real number of data breaches is significantly larger because some of the data breaches recorded by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse include an unknown number of affected records.
According to the 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigation, there were 2,100 data breaches involving 700 million compromised records.
The statistics on data breaches that preceded and ushered in the era of data invasion are listed below:
- Creeper, the first computer virus, was identified in the early 1970s (History of Information).
- The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse launched its data breach timeline in 2005. (Symantec).
- In 2005, the first data breach (DSW Shoe Warehouse) revealed over one million records (Symantec).
- Between 1976 and 2006, the greatest insider data security assault happened when Greg Chung of Boeing stole $2 billion in aerospace data and transferred it to China (NBC).
- In 1996, AOL became the first acknowledged target of data security phishing attempts (Phishing).
- In 2015, 25% of the world’s needed data security wasn’t safeguarded (Statista).
- One of the three biggest consumer credit reporting companies in the US, Equifax, disclosed a system data breach and the theft of 148 million Americans’ sensitive personal data in September 2017. (Los Angeles Times).
- 56 percent of data breaches in the first half of 2018 used social media (ITWeb).
- In 2018, there were 1,244 data breaches in the United States, exposing 446.5 million pieces of information (Statista).
- 4.1 billion records were exposed due to data breaches in the first half of 2019 (Forbes).
- Cyberattacks are one of the top five hazards to global stability as of 2019. (World Economic Forum).
- According to a Claroty survey, 80% of critical infrastructure firms suffered a ransomware assault in the previous year, and an identical percentage said their data security budgets had increased since 2020.
- 10% of all breaches include ransomware. According to the 2021 “Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report,” it increased in frequency by a factor of two.
- In February 2022, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced that it was aware of data theft threats and ransomware occurrences affecting 14 of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors in the United States.
- According to Forbes, in 2021, data breaches cost U.S. businesses more than $6.9 billion, and just 43% of companies felt financially ready to deal with a cyber-attack in 2022.
- In Singapore, web-based data security attacks affected 23.1% of users in the second quarter of 2022. Singapore has risen 23 positions from 109th in the first quarter of 2022 to 86th overall in terms of the risks connected with using the internet.
How to Stop Data Breach
According to data breach statistics, the correct data security technologies are crucial for attaining cyber resilience, in addition to people and procedures.
The following seven technologies are the most useful for building data security measures:
- Management and authentication of identities
- Anti-virus/anti-malware
- Data security systems for detecting and preventing intrusions.
- Data security platforms for incident response
- network traffic monitoring
- Data encryption when it’s at rest
- Event and information management for data security.
Conclusion
It may be possible to stop data breaches and data theft threats by supporting efficient data security backup and disaster recovery solutions like Acronis Cyber Protect and from professionals and restricting end-user access to risky websites and web-based apps.
To learn more about data breach solutions from our experts, WhatsApp us now.
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