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Data Breaches Soared in 2008
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| Written by Mel Duvall |
The number of data breaches increased dramatically in 2008, according to a report released by the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC).
According to the non-profit organization, businesses and other organizations disclosed 656 breaches in 2008, a 47% increase over the 446 reported the year before.
Businesses, such as retail operations, were the hardest hit, accounting for 36.6% or 240 reported breaches, followed by the education sector with 20% or 131 breaches, government and military with 16.8% or 110 breaches, health and medical with 14.8% or 97 breaches and the financial and credit sector with 11.9% or 78 breaches.
According to information obtained by the ITRC, only 2.4% of all breaches had encryption or other strong protection methods in place. Only 8.5% of reported breaches had password protection. “It is obvious that the bulk of breached data was unprotected by either encryption or passwords,” the organization stated.
The ITRC noted that the dramatic increase in reported breaches doesn’t necessarily mean that there has been a sudden spike in cyber crime. The ITRC may simply be learning of breaches that in the past would have gone unreported. Laws have been passed in some 44 states requiring organizations to report breaches to the attorney general’s office and to make the reports publicly available.
The ITRC provides details of each reported breach on its site. It says at least 35.7 million records were exposed in the breaches, however, the real number is likely substantially higher because many organizations did not provide full disclosure of the information lost.
The report provides fascinating reading. Some of the whoppers include the exposure of 12.5 million records at BNY Mellon Shareowner Services, 4.2 million records at Hannaford Bros. Supermarket Chain, and 2 million records at Countrywide.
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