Study: Worldwide data breaches up 49% in 2014

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Data breaches are on the rise around the world. Digital security provider Gemalto released the latest edition of its Breach Level Index (BLI), revealing that more than 1,500 data breaches led to one billion data records compromised worldwide during 2014.



These numbers represent a 49% increase in data breaches and a 78% increase in data records that were either stolen or lost compared to 2013. The main motivation for cybercriminals in 2014 was identity theft with 54% of the all data breaches being identity theft-based, more than any breach category including access to financial data. In addition, identity theft breaches also accounted for one-third of the most severe data breaches categorized by the BLI as either catastrophic (with a BLI score of between 9 and 10) or Severe (7 to 8.9). Secure breaches, which involved breaches of perimeter security where compromised data was encrypted in full or in part, increased to 4% from 1%.



In addition to the shift toward identity theft, breaches also became more severe last year with two-thirds of the 50 most severe breaches according to their BLI score having occurred in 2014. Also, the number of data breaches involving more than 100 million compromised data records doubled compared to 2013.



In terms of industries, retail and financial services experienced the most noticeable trends compared to other industry sectors in 2014. Retail experienced a slight increase in data breaches compared to last year, accounting for 11% of all data breaches in 2014. However, in terms of data records compromised, the retail industry saw its share increase to 55% compared to 29% last year due to an increased number of attacks that targeted point-of-sale systems.