Total Number of Breached Records Increased by 284% to Cross 15 Billion in 2019

• There were 5,183 breaches reported in the first nine months of 2019.
• In Q3 alone, six security breaches had reported exposing 100 million or more records.

2019 has been the ‘worst year on record’ for security breach incidents. When compared with 2018, last year saw more breach reports, more data exposed and more credentials dumped.

According to a report from Risk Based Security, the total number of records exposed due to data breaches has increased by 284% in 2019. In total, there were over 15.1 billion records exposed due to 7,098 breaches reported last year.

Preview of major breaches

As per the previous report from Risk Based Security, there were 5,183 breaches reported in the first nine months of 2019. This had resulted in the compromise of a total of 7.9 billion records. In Q3 alone, six security breaches had exposed 100 million or more records.

One of the major breaches was reported by a Chinese firm Orbivo. The firm had left open over 2 billion logs due to an unprotected database. The exposed data included a range of information such as account reset codes and user passwords.

The infamous ‘Collection#1’ data breach reported in early January 2019, also accounts for a majority of exposed records. The database, which was ultimately taken down by MEGA, contained data of over 770 million people. There were over 1 million unique combinations of email addresses and passwords.

Key findings

The Information sector continues to be the top target for a number of breaches, followed by the Healthcare sector. Interestingly, a significant number of breaches reported last year had occurred due to security lapses. This involved either unprotected databases or misdirected email. Insider threats accounted for 840 breaches of the total data breaches reported.