2016 Saw 1.4 Billion Records Compromised in Hack Attacks: Gemalto

One thousand seven hundred and ninety-two data breaches compromised nearly 1.4 billion records last year, according to Gemalto’s Breach Level Index.

The publication is the product of a global database of publicly disclosed breaches. According to its data, last year’s stats reflect an 86 percent increase in data breaches compared to 2015, with some of the most notable incidents including attacks against AdultFriend Finder, which saw 400 million records exposed, and the hack against the Philippines’ Commission on Elections, which scored 9.8 out of 10 in terms of its severity, according to the Index’s ranking system.

Gemalto says 59 percent of last year’s breaches involved identity theft, while 54 percent involved account access. The tech and healthcare sectors each took 28 percent of all data breaches, respectively, while the government sector accounted for 15 percent and financial services accounted for 12 percent.

It all points to the need for more sophisticated digital security – such as biometric login – as sensitive information and the kind of crime that pursues it increasingly go digital. As Gemalto asserts in a statement announcing the publication, “Encryption and authentication are no longer ‘best practices’ but necessities.”

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March 28, 2017 – by Alex Perala