In the span of last eight years, over 7.1 billion identities have been exposed. This has come out as the result of the data breaches on a global level. This is quite equivalent to each individual on this planet. This report has been given by Symantec. This was released by the company’s Internet Security Threat report.
Almost 1.1 billion identities have been exposed in 2016 alone. This a great jump from the 563.8 million in 2015. This is contrary to the fact that data breaches went down. It had fallen between the year 2015 and 2016. This dropped from 1,211 to 1,209 as per the report. In 2016, there were as many as fifteen mega data breaches. In these breaches, there were above 10 million identities that were stolen. This is an increase from 11 in 2014 as well as 13 in 2015.
The report was placed in the US at the top of the list for the number of breaches. It also rated top as the list in the number of identities stolen by the country. This is quite a relevant finding for several reasons. The United States has a large population. It has a high adoption of technology. Moreover, there are several large companies in the country as well. There are several strict legal requirements in the United States. These requirements might be needed for the reporting of the data breaches.
There were just four data breaches in France in 2016. However, Frances appears 2nd in the list of the identities stolen. Similarly, in Russia, there were just two data breaches. These data breaches were responsible for the bulk exposing of the identities. One breach had revealed around 57 million email addresses. The 2nd breach revealed around 25 million user accounts. India reported 8 data breaches in 2016 as per the report.
The global ransomware antivirus detection has increased over the course of 2016 as per the report. This averaged at around 35,000 per month at the beginning of the year. This number rose to around 40,000 per month by the end of the year. The United States continues to be the most affected by ransomware. Japan, Italy, Canada, and India are also heavily affected by the same.
The statistics of the report states that the attackers are highly concentrating on the developed and the stable economies. The United States tops the list of all the nations.