Technology

Data Breaches Up 22% to Date in 2016

Paul Ausick

Published: May 25, 2016 12:25 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 7:34 am

The latest count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that there have been 420 data breaches recorded this year through May 24, 2016, and that more than 12 million records have been exposed since the beginning of the year. The total number of reported breaches increased by 42 compared to the prior two weeks.

Earlier this month Wendy’s Co. (NASDAQ: WEN) said that hundreds of franchisees were victims of a hack attack in late 2015 and the company’s investigation cost it some portion of a hike of $3.7 million expenses in the first quarter of this year. About 300 of Wendy’s 6,500 stores appear to have been attacked.

The number of breaches in 2015 totaled 781, just two shy of the record 783 breaches that ITRC tracked in 2014. The 420 data breaches reported so far for 2016 are 22.1% more than the number reported (344) for the same period of last year. A total of more than 169 million records were exposed in 2015.

Here’s a rundown of the ITRC report for last week:

• The government/military sector retained the lead in the number of records exposed in 2016. The sector has suffered 20 data breaches so far this year, representing about 42.9% of the total number of records exposed and 4.8% of the incidents. More than 5.2 million records have been compromised in the government/military sector to date in 2016.
• The medical/health care sector has posted 34.3% (137) of all data breaches to date this year. The number of records exposed in these breaches totaled nearly 4.2 million, or about 34.3% of the total so far in 2016.
• The business sector accounts for nearly 2.4 million exposed records in 203 incidents. That represents 48.3% of the incidents and 19.7% of the exposed records.
• The number of banking/credit/financial breaches totals 10 for the year to date and involves nearly 5,000 records, some 2.4% of the total number of breaches and less than 0.1% of the records exposed.
• The educational sector has seen 50 data breaches in 2016. The sector accounts for 11.9% of all breaches for the year and more than 363,000 exposed records, about 3% of the total so far this year.

Since beginning to track data breaches in 2005, ITRC had counted 6,079 breaches through April 18, 2016, involving more than 862 million records.