Data Breaches Continue to Climb

Data breaches are perhaps one of the biggest burdens that companies face in 2018. Forget slumping sales or careless ad campaigns. When a company is breached and hackers have all its customers’ information, that’s when real damage can be done.

In the past, hackers have been able to steal credit card and personal information from major companies like Equifax, JPMorgan and Home Depot. As a result, cybersecurity has become more necessary, and according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), the number of breaches affecting all industries continued to grow at an increased pace year over year.

For the month of February, 94 breaches were added to the 2018 ITRC Breach Report, for a 38.2% increase over last year’s records for the same period.

While the business sector is still the hardest hit by breaches, there has been a significant increase in the percentage of banking/credit/financial institutions affected by breaches last month (14.9% of the breaches reported in February) compared to February 2017 (0% reported).

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According to the ITRC:

When considering the methods of compromise, hacking continues to be the most frequently identified type of attack. In February, 22 percent of the total number of breached entities included in the ITRC Breach List identified hacking as the leading type of attack. Of this 22 percent, 65 percent indicated phishing was the method of the hack, 20 percent were hacked using ransomware, and less than 1 percent hacked indicated a skimming device was used. The remainder are attributed to unpublished methods of hacking.

Keep in mind, the business, banking/credit/financial and government/military sectors have been the hardest hit by hacking, versus other methods of compromise, as reported in February at 54%, 50% and 46%, respectively, for their industries.

Unauthorized access accounted for 24% of breaches in the business sector and 14% or less of breaches for each of the other sectors, showing that the business sector is a large target.

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