Technology

Data Breaches Up 22% So Far in 2016

Paul Ausick

Published: June 2, 2016 2:05 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 7:16 am

The latest count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that there have been 430 data breaches recorded this year through May 31, 2016, and that nearly 12.6 million records have been exposed since the beginning of the year. The total number of reported breaches increased by 10 compared to the prior week total.

Time Inc. (NYSE: TIME) confirmed on Monday that its Myspace social media website was hacked and that user login data had been compromised. The company said that the compromised data was limited to some Myspace usernames, passwords and email addresses from the Myspace platform as it existed before June 11, 2013. Time did not say how many records were involved, but TechCrunch cited LeakedSource.com as reporting that more than 360 million accounts were involved.  If that turns out to be accurate, the breach would be the largest ever.

The number of breaches in 2015 totaled 781, just two shy of the record 783 breaches that ITRC tracked in 2014. The 430 data breaches reported so far for 2016 are 21.5% more than the number reported (354) for the same period 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 21 data breaches so far this year, representing about 44.7% of the total number of records exposed and 4.9% of the incidents. More than 5.6 million records have been compromised in the government/military sector to date in 2016.
• The medical/health care sector has posted 34.3% (142) of all data breaches to date this year. The number of records exposed in these breaches totaled more than 4.2 million, or about 33.4% of the total so far in 2016.
• The business sector accounts for nearly 2.4 million exposed records in 205 incidents. That represents 47.7% of the incidents and 19% of the exposed records.
• The number of banking/credit/financial breaches totals 11 for the year to date and involves nearly 5,000 records, some 2.6% of the total number of breaches and less than 0.1% of the records exposed.
• The educational sector has seen 51 data breaches in 2016. The sector accounts for 11.9% of all breaches for the year and more than 365000 exposed records, about 2.9% 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.