Over 146 Billion Records To Be Stolen Over Next Five Years

More than 33 billion records will be stolen by cyber criminals in 2023 alone, despite data protection laws mandating strong measures to protect personal and financial data, a study has found. The figure represents an increase of 175% over the 12 billion records expected to be compromised in 2018, resulting in cumulative losses of more than 146 billion records over the next five years, according to research by Juniper Research. IT security experts commented below.

Tim Helming, Director of Product Management at DomainTools:

“While these scarily big numbers are nothing unusual to those familiar with cybersecurity, we should not become desensitized to them. Following on from last year’s mega-breach at Equifax, people are accustomed to the idea that there data may not be secure, but they may not yet be aware of the consequences of this. When data is stolen, this is often the last step in one round of criminal activity and the first step in another. PII can be used to mount spear phishing campaigns, financial crime and fraud, including the most serious kinds such as identity theft. With this many records predicted to be available for this kind of nefarious activity, it’s of crucial importance that both organisations and individuals do their utmost in order to remain vigilant; organisations need to take every possible measure to ensure that data is protected, and consumers need to be aware of the tell-tale signs of cybercrime should these protective measures at an enterprise level fail.”

Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault:

“It’s no surprise that it is predicted that data exfiltration will increase. It makes it important for companies of all sizes and across all verticals to be more vigilant and have strong monitoring, threat detection controls in place that will help to detect any successful or attempted breaches so that the appropriate responses can be taken quickly to protect Data inform relevant stakeholders.”