admin The number of U.S. data breach incidents tracked in 2017 hit a new record high of 1,579 breaches,
according to the 2017 Data Breach Year-End Review released by the Identity Theft Resource
Center (ITRC) and CyberScout. The Review indicates a drastic upturn of 44.7 percent increase
over the record high figures reported for 2016.
“We’ve seen the number of identified breaches increase as a result of industries moving toward more
transparency,” said Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center. “We
want to encourage businesses and government entities to continue to provide timely reports to their
respective Attorney Generals so consumers can be better informed on what are the immediate and
long-term impacts to their personal information by any given data breach.”
Of the five industry sectors that the ITRC tracks, the business category again topped the ITRC’s Data
Breach List list for the third year in a row with 55 percent of the overall total number of breaches (870).
This marks the eighth time since 2005 that the number of breaches for this sector has surpassed all
other industries.
The Medical/Healthcare industry followed in second place with 23.7 percent of the
overall total number of breaches (374). The Banking/Credit/Financial sector rounds out the top
three with 8.5 percent of the overall total (134). This is only the second time since 2005 that the
Banking/Credit/Financial sector has ranked in the top three industry categories. The remaining two sectors, Educational and Government/Military, represented 8 percent and 4.7 percent respectively.
Read the full report here.
