2.6 Billion Records Were Stolen, Lost Or Exposed Worldwide In 2017, An Increase Of 88% From 2016

Gemalto released the latest findings of the Breach Level Index, revealing that 2.6 billion records were stolen, lost or exposed worldwide in 2017, an 88% increase from 2016. While data breach incidents decreased by 11%, 2017 was the first year publicly disclosed breaches surpassed more than two billion compromised data records since the Breach Level Index began tracking data breaches in 2013. Chris Doman, Security Researcher at AlienVault commented below.

Chris Doman, Security Researcher at AlienVault:

“I’d take the high level numbers in the report with a pinch of salt. The yearly trends depend primarily upon large breaches, like Yahoo, that can distort the numbers.And these total numbers don’t include non-public breaches – which still make up the majority of breaches. Nor is it a complete account of all the public breaches, with multiple breaches identified every day.

Often smaller breaches of sensitive data are far more damaging than breaches of large amounts of typically non sensitive data such as email addresses. To be fair, Gemalto do go on to break down individual breaches based on the severity of the data lost.”