10 Data Breach Statistics Every IT Department Should Know About

Kroger, T-Mobile, Microsoft Exchange, California DMV, Facebook, LinkedIn, Experian, Bose. Just a handful of hundreds of companies that have experienced a data breach in the first half of 2021 alone. The list goes on… including even the email security company Mimecast. As a result, millions of people are now at risk of identity theft and fraud, thanks to these cyberattacks.

What Would You Be Risking?

Security breaches don’t discriminate when it comes to the types of companies they target. So far this year, hackers have infiltrated social media companies, grocery and food supply chains, medical treatment centers, and even online dating sites (which exposed some really sensitive information!)

So, ask yourself a question. If your company is currently being targeted, what kinds of information could cybercriminals expose about your customers? What’s at risk?

Some hacker favorites include:

• Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as customer names, phone numbers, date of birth, and physical addresses
• Health insurance information and confidential lab results and diagnosis details
• Work-related personal data, including names and titles to be used in future CEO impersonation attempts
• Payment information, including the last four digits of credit cards
• Social media handles, user names, and account IDs
• Driver’s license, passport, and social security numbers
• Investment account numbers
• Vaccine and medication details

10 Things You Need to Know

The first step in any good cybersecurity plan is awareness. You should know about the threats that are lurking just around the corner and then evaluate the tools your company has in place to combat these threats.

Here are 10 data breach statistics every IT department should know about:¹

1. 72% of data breaches occurred in large businesses; 28% involved small businesses.
2. 70% of data breaches are executed by external actors.
3. 55% of data breaches were perpetrated by organized criminal groups.
4. 27% of all malware incidents contain ransomware.
5. 58% of data breaches involved the theft of personal data, which is almost twice as much as the prior year.
6. The three business sectors most frequently targeted in data breaches include Information/Data, Professional/Technical, and Public Administration.
7. 78% of attacks on web applications in the U.S. involved stolen credentials.
8. 48% of data breaches in the Healthcare industry were initiated by internal threat actors.
9. 86% of data breaches are financially motivated.
10. Phishing and Business Email Compromise (BEC) continue to cause the majority of breaches.

To truly have a handle on phishing threats, you need a third party’s assistance. INKY offers a relentlessly effective level of security, capable of detecting and stopping phishing threats and similar cybercrimes before any employee falls for them. Using computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning, INKY provides a level of ingenuity that is unlike other email security platforms. INKY sees things the way humans do, recognizing logos, brand colors, email signatures and more — but it also sees the millions of things humans can’t, spotting imposters by as little as a pixel. Then, INKY learns from everything she sees and as a result, grows stronger by the minute.

Learn more about what INKY can do for your company and schedule a free demonstration today.

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INKY™ is the most effective hero in the war against phishing. An award-winning cloud-based email security solution, INKY™ prevents the most complex phishing threats from disrupting or even immobilizing your company’s day-to-day business operations. Using computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, INKY™ is the smartest investment you can make in the security of your organization. INKY™ is a proud winner of the SINET 16 Innovation Award and was a finalist in the RSAC Innovation Sandbox Competition. Learn more about INKY™ or request an online demonstration today.

¹Source: https://enterprise.verizon.com/business/resources/executivebriefs/2020-dbir-executive-brief.pdfx