According to digital security firm Gemalto, data breaches during the first half 2015 increased 10 percent compared with the same time period a year ago.
“What we’re continuing to see is a large ROI for hackers with sophisticated attacks that expose massive amounts data records. Cyber criminals are still getting away with big and very valuable data sets. For instance, the average healthcare data breach in the first half of 2015 netted more than 450,000 data records, which is an increase of 200 percent compared to the same time last year,” said Jason Hart, vice president and CTO for data protection at Gemalto.
The findings from the Amsterdam-based firm’s Breach Level Index for the first six months of 2015 reveals 888 data breaches occurred, compromising 246 million records worldwide—a decline of about 40 percent from the 2014 first half.
This decline in compromised records can most likely be attributed to that fact that fewer large scale mega breaches have occurred in the retail industry compared to the same period last year.
The largest breach in the first half of 2015—which scored a 10 in terms of severity on the Breach Level Index—was an identity-theft attack on Anthem Insurance that exposed 78.8 million records. This cyberattack accounts for nearly a third of data records stolen in the first six months of this year.
Other notable breaches during the first six months included a 21-million-record breach at the US Office of Personnel Management, a 50-million-record breach at Turkey’s General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs, and a 20-million-record breach at Russia’s Topface. The top 10 breaches accounted for 81.4 percent of all compromised records.
For a full summary of data breach incidents for the first half of 2015 by industry, source, type and geographic region, download the 1H 2015 Breach Level Index Report.
The Breach Level Index provides a centralized, global database of data breaches and calculates their severity based on multiple dimensions, including the type of data and the number of records stolen, the source of the breach, and whether or not the data was encrypted. By assigning a severity score to each breach, the BLI provides a comparative list of breaches, distinguishing nuisances from truly impactful mega breaches. Information populating the BLI database is based on publicly-available breach disclosure information. For more information, visit www.breachlevelindex.com.
Chad Hemenway is Managing Editor of Advisen News. He has more than 15 years of journalist experience at a variety of online, daily, and weekly publications. He has covered P&C insurance news since 2007, and he has experience writing about all P&C lines as well as regulation and litigation. Chad won a Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Single Article in 2014 for his coverage of the insurance implications of traumatic brain injuries and Best News Coverage in 2013 for coverage of Superstorm Sandy. Contact Chad at 212.897.4824 or [email protected].
