The latest count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that there have been 538 data breaches recorded this year through May 3 and that more than 9.8 million records have been exposed since the beginning of the year. The total represents a 34% increase in the number of breaches to date compared with 2016.

In 2016, the ITRC reported a record total of 1,093 breaches and at the current pace that total could rise to around 1,500 in 2017.

Last week the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that between October 2013 and December 2016 more than 40,000 business email compromises and email account compromises (BEC/EAC) had occurred. The worldwide dollar loss totaled $5.3 billion and the U.S. dollar loss totaled $1.59 billion. Of the 40,203 total incidents, 22,292 involved U.S. victims.

The business sector leads all sectors in the number of records compromised so far in 2017 with nearly 8 million exposed records in 313 incidents. That represents 56.1% of the incidents, and more than 81% of the exposed records so far this year.

The medical/healthcare sector has posted 22.6% (126) of all data breaches. The number of records exposed in these breaches totaled tops 1.5 million, or about 16% of the 2017 total.

The educational sector has experienced 71 data breaches since the beginning of the year. The sector accounts for 12.7% of all breaches for the year and more than 44,000 exposed records, about 0.5% of the year’s total.

The government/military sector has suffered 29 data breaches to date in 2017, representing about 2% of the total number of records exposed and 5.2% of the incidents. More than 190,000 records have been compromised in the government/military sector.

The number of banking/credit/financial sector breaches now totals 19, some 3.4% of the total incidents reported so far this year. 20,000 records have been reported to be compromised in the incidents.

Since beginning to track data breaches in 2005, ITRC had counted 7,456 breaches through May 2, 2017, involving nearly 900 million records.

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