Technology
676 Data Breaches in 2017 as Record Pace Continues
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The latest count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that there have been 676 data breaches recorded this year through May 23 and that more than 10.2 million records have been exposed since the beginning of the year. The total represents a 34.7% 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.
Earlier this week, Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) agreed to pay $18.5 million to end state investigations into the 2013 hack to the company’s systems that exposed personal information of more than 40 million customers. A total of 47 states will share out the settlement, with the largest payment — $1.4 million — going to California.
The business sector leads them all in the number of records compromised so far in 2017, with more than 7.5 million exposed records in 384 incidents. That represents 56.8% of the incidents, and nearly 74% of the exposed records so far this year.
The medical/health care sector has posted 21.3% (144) of all data breaches. The number of records exposed in these breaches totaled more than 1.9 million, or about 18.7% of the 2017 total.
The educational sector has experienced 81 data breaches since the beginning of the year. The sector accounts for 12% of all breaches for the year and more than 47,000 exposed records, about 0.4% of the year’s total.
The government/military sector has suffered 35 data breaches to date in 2017, representing about 2.1% of the total number of records exposed and 5.2% of the incidents. More than 210,000 records have been compromised in the government/military sector.
The number of banking/credit/financial sector breaches now totals 32, some 4.7% of the total incidents reported so far this year. Some 520,000 records have been reported to be compromised in the incidents.
Since beginning to track data breaches in 2005, ITRC had counted 7,574 breaches through May 23, 2017, involving nearly 900 million records.
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