According to digital security company Gemalto's Breach Level Index, globally an average of 10.4 million records are lost or stolen every day. The figures do not include the recent Equifax breach, which may have compromised the personal data of up to 143 million Americans, 400,000 UK consumers and 100,000 Canadians.
North America still makes up the majority of all breaches and the number of compromised records, both above 86% of the total, although Gemalto predicts GDPR will lead to a huge rise in Europe in the future.
The UK had the second highest number of reported incidents after the US, with 40 but a total of 28,331,861 data records were compromised in the UK in the first half of 2017 (up 130% from H2 2016).
Half of data incidents in the UK involved a malicious outsider, with 38% attributed to accidental loss. Two-thirds (65%) of the breaches in the UK are classified as identity theft.
Government was the single biggest source of security incidents with 12, ahead of technology firms (seven) and healthcare (six).
Gemalto vice president and chief technology officer Jason Hart said: "Security is no longer a reactive measure but an expectation from companies and consumers. We can expect that number to grow significantly, especially as Europe enacts laws to protect the privacy and data of their constituents by associating a monetary value to improperly securing data."
Thank you for your input
Thank you for your feedback
DataIQ is a trading name of IQ Data Group Limited
10 York Road, London, SE1 7ND
Phone: +44 020 3821 5665
Registered in England: 9900834
Copyright © IQ Data Group Limited 2024