Data Breach Numbers Explode - 4.1 Billion Records Exposed
By: Jim Stickley and Tina Davis
January 17, 2020
This past year may be remembered for a lot of reasons, but accidental data breaches shouldn’t be one of them. A report found that in the first six months of 2019, 4.1 billion records were exposed in 3,800 publicly reported data breaches. The number of breached records were reported in the 2019 MidYear QuickView Data Breach Report, along with a closer look at what’s behind the astronomical numbers. It’s a disturbing account of breaches that could have been avoided, as well as the importance of security awareness training for employees. Businesses both big and small are at risk, and a combination of properly secured systems and cyber-smart employees may be the answer to the growing data breach problem.
Just eight breaches were found responsible for exposing 3.2 billion records, with most involving 10,000 records or less. The two greatest amounts of exposed data overall involved email at 70% and passwords at 65%.
Data breaches happen for many reasons, but the report finds poorly configured systems and employee error are the most common causes. Large corporations, small businesses and everything in between are vulnerable to breaches for the same reason–human error.
There’s been no shortage of headlines about misconfigured data bases and countless employee missteps that could have been avoided. Corporations who know their massive amounts of data are a hacker target still make configuration mistakes. Small businesses who believe they don’t need to pay much attention to security because they don’t have huge amounts of data to store are mistaken. Instead, that alone makes them a juicy target. Data is king and hackers aren’t particular about where they steal it from. Making sure data bases are thoroughly secured keeps data out of the wrong hands and accidental breaches out of the headlines.
Cyber educated employees are necessary on every level of business, as they are most often those behind unintentional data exposure. A staff that’s unaware of basic cybersecurity steps is a data exposure accident waiting to happen. An employee who knows how to spot phishing emails and uses secure passwords goes a long way keeping data secure. Security awareness training for any sized business is critical, with ongoing training most effective. Businesses that make sure every system is configured correctly and every employee is cyber-smart are way ahead of the data breach curve.