Technology

Exposed Government, Medical Records Total More Than 10 Million in 2016

Paul Ausick

Published: July 18, 2016 11:10 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 5:36 am

The latest count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that there have been 522 data breaches recorded this year through July 12, 2016, and that nearly 13 million records have been exposed since the beginning of the year. The total number of reported breaches increased by 15 since ITRC’s last report.

An interim report issued last week by the Republican members of a U.S. House committee charged that data breaches and hacking attacks against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) indicate mismanagement and security flaws at the federal agency that insures consumer bank deposits. The report also cited a “culture of concealment” and pointed a finger directly at FDIC’s CIO, who was blamed for the “toxic work environment” at the agency and who also was accused of misleading Congress and retaliating against whistleblowers.

The number of breaches in 2015 totaled 781, just two shy of the record 783 breaches that ITRC tracked in 2014. The 522 data breaches reported so far for 2016 are 15% more than the number reported (453) 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 31 data breaches so far this year, representing about 43% of the total number of records exposed and 5.9% of the incidents. More than 5.6 million records have been compromised in the government/military sector to date in 2016.
• The business sector accounts for more than 2.4 million exposed records in 235 incidents. That represents 45% of the incidents and 19.1% of the exposed records.
• The medical/health care sector has posted 34.7% (181) of all data breaches to date this year. The number of records exposed in these breaches totaled nearly 4.5 million, or about 34.4% of the total so far in 2016.
• The number of banking/credit/financial breaches totals 16 for the year to date and involves nearly 5,300 records, some 3.1% of the total number of breaches and less than 0.1% of the records exposed.
• The educational sector has seen 59 data breaches in 2016. The sector accounts for 11.3% of all breaches for the year and more than 400,000 exposed records, about 3.1% of the total so far this year.

Since beginning to track data breaches in 2005, ITRC had counted 6,331 breaches through June 28, 2016, involving more than 864 million records.