Report: 44 Data Records Stolen Every Second in 2016

Last year was yet another banner year for data breaches. Not including the 1 billion records stolen from Yahoo — which actually occurred in 2013 and 2014, the number of records stolen in 2016 added up to 1.3 billion records, according to a research report from Gemalto.

Tallied up mathematically, that’s more than 3.7 million records stolen daily. The report notes that this figure is an 86 percent increase from 2015.

Extortion may have been a top motivator for criminals, as they often to sites that contain sensitive or embarrassing personal data like online dating or adult content sites. Data records stolen from those sites could be used to extort victims.

“…The numbers that are available on breaches and records stolen in 2016 are eye-opening,” the report authors wrote, “and once again show that cyber security efforts are not preventing these attacks from being successful.”

The numbers indicate that the yield per attack is rising, as the total number of breach events in 2016 actually went down slightly by about four percent compared to 2015.

The report from Gemalto assigns a “breach level index” assessment score that assigns a score of 1, considered a minimal risk, to 10, which is considered catastrophic. The score is based on a number of factors including how many records were breached, the source of the breach and how the data was used following the event. The intent here is to show “demonstrate that not all breaches have the same impact on organizations or the same amount of risk.”

Topping the list with a score of 10 was Adult Friend Finder with the dating site’s breach of more than 412,000 records.