1.4bn records compromised in data breaches

There were 1792 reported data breaches worldwide in 2016 — up 86% from 2015 — resulting in nearly 1.4 billion data records being compromised, according to Gemalto’s latest Breach Level Index.

A total of 44 of these breaches were in Australia, but with mandatory data breach reporting yet to take effect this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg, the company said.

Worldwide, identity theft was the most common type of data breach in 2016, accounting for 59% of all incidents.

But account access based breaches accounted for the majority (54%) of all breached records during the year, due to the trend towards cybercriminals attacking bigger databases containing large volumes of personally identifiable information.

Malicious outsiders were the leading source of data breaches, accounting for 68% of all breaches, up from just 13% in 2015. The number of records compromised in malicious outsider attacks also surged 286% from 2015.

The healthcare industry reported the most breach incidents during the year, but the greatest number of records were compromised in attacks on the government and technology sectors.

The report also shows that just 48% of breached organisations reported the number of compromised records at the time of their initial disclosure.

“The Breach Level Index highlights four major cybercriminal trends over the past year. Hackers are casting a wider net and are using easily attainable account and identity information as a starting point for high-value targets,” Gemalto Regional Director for Australia and New Zealand Graeme Pyper said.

“Clearly, fraudsters are also shifting from attacks targeted at financial organisations to infiltrating large databases such as entertainment and social media sites. Lastly, fraudsters have been using encryption to make breached data unreadable, then holding it for ransom and decrypting once they are paid.”

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