Advisen Loss Insight: Focus on USA cyber cases redux

In today’s interconnected world, geography offers no protection against the threat of an attack. This is certainly true for the United States, one of the most powerful nations on earth and one of the most frequently targeted.

Home to many major corporations, the world’s largest democracy remains a leader in innovation and is targeted by cyber thieves looking to obtain consumer financial information, trade secrets and intellectual property.

In the USA and the rest of the world, the frequency of cyber-related cases is escalating but at a steeper rate in the states, according to the Advisen Loss Insight database.

SEE OUR FIRST LOOK AT CYBER CASES IN THE US: Corporations, innovation put cyber target on USA

Breaking out the United Kingdom from the rest of the world (ROW), it is quite clear how much more cyber-related litigation exists in the US. This is largely due to the mandated notification laws US organizations must follow. These laws may differ widely from state-to-state. Additionally, consumers file litigation alleging what amounts a general lack to adhere to duty-of-care obligations to protect payment card and personal information.

No industry is immune to the threat of a cyber event, but surprisingly cases involving printed records are still the source of loss in about 15 percent of cases. Servers are tops when it comes to sources of data loss. Laptops, oftentimes lost or stolen, also make up a noticeable slice of the pie chart.

SEE OUR FIRST LOOK AT CYBER CASES IN THE US: Corporations, innovation put cyber target on USA

A majority of cases in the database involve lost personal financial information, followed by other personally identifiable information. Recent cases of breaches have–at least according to the disclosures of hacked companies–involved more personal information such as name, address and email address rather than financial data, so maybe there will be some movement in these percentages in the near future.