[BreachExchange] Number of Records Exposed in 2019 Hits 15.1 Billion

[Destry Winant]

https://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2020/02/10/number-of-records-exposed-in-2019-hits-15-1-billion/

Today, we released our 2019 Year End Data Breach QuickView Report,
which finds that the total number of records exposed increased by 284%
compared to 2018.

In total, there were over 15.1 billion records exposed shattering
industry projections. There were 7,098 breaches reported in 2019, a 1%
increase on 2018, though the gap is anticipated to grow throughout Q1
2020 as more 2019 incidents come to light.

“2019 was a rough year for breach activity, with reported breaches
reaching an all-time high. As ghastly as those numbers are, there is
much more to the story of 2019.”

Inga Goddijn, Executive Vice President, Risk Based Security

2019 has lived up to its reputation for being the “worst year on
record” for breach activity with more breaches reported, more data
exposed, and more credentials being dumped online. Since the release
of our Q3 report three months ago, 7.2 billion records were
compromised, with only four events accounting for 93.5% of those
records.

The cause? Open and misconfigured databases that were publicly
accessible to anyone motivated to seek them out.

“The interest in finding these rich sources of information shows
little sign of abating. Thanks to the combination of low risk
detection and low barrier of entry into this type of activity, we
anticipate open, unsecured data will continue to be an issue well into
the new decade.”

Inga Goddijn, Executive Vice President, Risk Based Security

The 2019 Year End Data Breach QuickView Report covers the data
breaches reported between January 1st and December 31st, 2019. Key
findings state that by NAICS economic sector, technology providers
pushed the Information sector to the top spot for number of breaches,
followed by the Healthcare sector. Looking further into the data
breach landscape, hacking remains the top breach type for number of
incidents and exposed the most records this year.

Get your copy of the 2019 Year End Data Breach QuickView Report

Join Our Webinar

DATA BREACH QUICKVIEW: LESSONS FROM 2019 & WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2020

Inga Goddijn, Executive Vice President, Risk Based Security
2:00-2:45pm EST on Tuesday, February 11th hosted on BrightTALK

In this webinar, Inga Goddijn presents findings from the new 2019 Year
End QuickView report, breaking down what we’ve learned and what it
means for 2020. Don’t miss this!

About the QuickView Report and Cyber Risk Analytics

The quarterly Data Breach QuickView report is a service of Cyber Risk
Analytics (CRA), which provides actionable threat intelligence about
organizations that have had a data breach or leaked credentials. This
enables organizations to reduce exposure to the threats most likely to
impact them and their vendor base.

In addition, our PreBreach vendor risk ratings, the result of a
deep-view into the metrics driving cyber exposures, are used to better
understand the digital hygiene of an organization and the likelihood
of a future data breach.

The integration of PreBreach ratings into security processes, vendor
management programs, cyber insurance processes and risk management
tools allows organizations to avoid costly risk assessments, while
enabling businesses to understand their risk posture, and to act
quickly and appropriately to proactively protect their most critical
information assets.