200 Million Data Records Stolen in 1Q14 – SafeNet

SafeNet, Inc., in data protection solutions, released the highlights from its Breach Level Index (BLI) for the first quarter of 2014.

Nearly 200 million records were stolen, the equivalent of approximately 93,000 records stolen every hour, between January and March, which was an increase of 233% over the same time last year.

Of the 254 data breaches that occurred during the quarter, only 1% were ‘secure breaches,’ or breaches where strong encryption, key management, or authentication solutions protected the data from being used.

BLI: Q1 2014 Data Records Lost or Stolen by Source

 
Q1 Highlights
The BMI provides details about hundreds of individual data breaches, which can be sorted by source, industry, risk level, and date.

Highlights from the first quarter research include:

• More than 254 data breaches were publicised, representing 200 million lost or stolen data records. Because of the varying strictness of data breach reporting requirements around the globe, this quarterly data does not include organisations that didn’t disclose the amount of data records that were exposed. In all probability, the total number is likely to be even higher.
• South Korea took the top spot of all countries with four of the top five breaches worldwide and a loss of 158 million records across a variety of industries. This represents 79% of the total number of reported breached records worldwide. These four breaches included the Korea Credit Bureau, Korean Medical Association, Korea Telecom, and Naver, a major Korean search portal. While the number of South Korean breached records was extremely high, the number of breach incidents in AsiaPac as a whole accounted for only 7% of the total number of global breaches, dwarfed by the 78% (199 incidents) that occurred in North America and 13%  in Europe.
• The financial industry was hit hardest, accounting for 56% of all data records lost or stolen. However, it represented 14% of total breaches during the quarter.
• The healthcare industry was hit hard in terms of breach events, accounting for 24% of all breaches. However, the industry accounted for just 9% of data records lost or stolen.
• 20% of all records lost or stolen came from the technology industry, while retail represented just 1% of data records lost or stolen and 10%  of all data breaches, even including the Sally Beauty Supply breach, which made major headlines.
• Government and education breaches accounted for less than 1% of total records stolen and 23% of data breaches, including the University of Maryland’s breach of 287,000 records stolen early this year.
• Malicious outsiders accounted for 156 (62%) of total incidents during the first quarter, with over 86 million records stolen. Malicious insiders only accounted for 11% of total incidents, but they were much more effective, accounting for 52% of records stolen. Accidental loss represented 25% of total incidents, while hacktivist and state-sponsored attacks added up to only 2% of the total.
• There were approximately three breaches and 2.2 million records stolen each day, and more than 92,000 per hour.

“The white noise of data breach reporting makes every breach seem just as bad as the last, but this is certainly not the case. Some organisations are handling customer data responsibly, and others are not. Tools like the Breach Level Index can help companies and the public alike understand the actual severity of breaches on a graduated scale and distinguish between these two groups,” said Jason Hart, VP cloud solutions, SafeNet. “In differentiating between secure and insecure breaches, it’s important to look at which victims have protected their data with encryption to limit the damage from a breach and render the date unusable to cyber criminals.”
 
About BLI
The BLI provides a centralised, global database of data breaches and calculates their severity based on multiple dimensions, including the type of data and the number of records stolen, the source of the breach, and whether or not the data was encrypted. By assigning a severity score to each breach, the BLI provides a comparative list of breaches, distinguishing nuisances from truly impactful mega breaches. Information populating the BLI database is based on publicly-available breach disclosure information.
 
SafeNet first collaborated with industry analyst firm IT-Harvest in 2013 to develop the logarithmic formula used to determine breach severity. When calculating the severity of data breaches, the BLI factors in multiple inputs, including data type, number of records stolen, breach source, and if the high-value data remained secure after the breach was discovered. These inputs are then processed through a proprietary algorithm that produces an index number, with 1 being least severe and 10 being most severe.
 
Note: Information in the BLI is collected from public sources. SafeNet provides this information as-is, makes no representation or guarantees regarding this information, and is not liable for any use. A secure breach is categorised as a breach in which strong encryption, key management and authentication solutions protect the data from being accessed during an attack.