Data Breaches Grow Bigger and Badder - Twenty-Four Seven Security

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April 04, 2008
Data Breaches Grow Bigger and Badder

According to Brian Krebs Security Fix, the number of personal and financial records already leaked, spilled, or stolen already this year totals...8.3 million records.

This number comes from San Diego based Identity Theft Resource Center, the 8.3 million coming from a total of 167 breaches, which compares with 448 total breaches in all of 2007.

Some somewhat good news out of this is more than half of the total came from the Hannaford Bros. intrusion, which totaled a loss of 4.2 million records. Businesses were responsible for 36% of the data leakage, while schools made up 25%, government and military 18%, medical/healthcare 14%, banking and financial 7%, and your parents make up the rest (just kidding about your parents).

Most telling, though, is that only 13% of the breaches were the result of hackers gaining access, while the great majority came from lost or stolen laptops, memory sticks, or hard drives, with insider abuse along with human error cited as the next most common reasons.

Said Linda Foley, founder of the ID Theft Resource Center, "The question of why we are hearing more about data breaches is going to take us a couple of more years to sort out," Foley said. "I think, perhaps in addition to the state [disclosure laws], companies are urged on a bit by the fear of the media taking the story and releasing it rather than the companies themselves getting a chance to the spin the news."

Let's just hope it's one or two people's records that just keep getting stolen over and over again. Wonder what the max limit on that credit card is?