It's 'hard to tell' if data breach cases are rising or not

2010-01-13

It is difficult to tell whether or not data breach incidences are rising or falling, it has been suggested. The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) Breach Report recorded 498 cases in 2009, compared to 657 in 2008 and 446 in 2007.

According to the organisation, the dilemma above will not be sorted until there is a single data breach list that requires public reporting.

The ITRC commented: "When we allow laws to be created, requiring breach reporting but not disclosure, and provide minimal enforcement or penalty for non-compliance, we can expect a lack of public disclosure. Counting breaches becomes an exercise in insanity."

Despite this situation, the ITRC collates data about information breaches that are made public through reliable media and notification lists from governmental agencies. It used percentages to look into the 498 breaches recorded in 2009.

From its research the body has found that of all of last year's incidences, only six reported that they either had encryption or other strong security features in place to protect the exposed data.

Between 2006 and 2009, the business sector went from accounting for 21 per cent of all reported data breach incidents up to 41 per cent. This made it the worst performing sector by a significant margin, the ITRC explained.

Over 222 million potentially compromised records were identified by the body in 2009, with 200 million of these attributed to two very large breaches. However, in over 52 per cent of the publicly reported infringements no statement of the number of records exposed was provided. The ITRC added that this means it is unclear how many may have been exposed because of breaches in 2009.

The ITRC and Robert Siciliano recently predicted that the recession will lead to more scams as thieves have now discovered ways to use the downturn to their advantage.

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