While Hollywood celebrities are complaining over their stolen, over-exposing snaps and tarnished images, the world is facing a bigger problem. Although there are a few more months to the end of this year, 2014 has already deserved the title “Year of the Hacker.” Only over the first six months of the year, the world has witnessed more cyber attacks (protect yourself) compared to all the incidents recorded during the entire 2011. If the same amount of breaches occurs over the second half of the year, 2014 will score and all-time record in cyber attacks and incidents.
The facts are revealed in the H1 2014 report of Data Breach QuickView. According to it, the number of hacker attacks in 2014 is already outnumbering those witnessed during the entire 2013. Between January and June 2014, more than 502 million records were exposed as a result of online security breaches. That is much more compared to the registered number of incidents during H1 2013.
Moreover, the world’s largest hacking attacks took place this year. Just a couple of months ago, 173 million records were exposed after a company named NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission became a victim of such an attack. Again, in 2014, 145 million records were stolen from eBay and another 104 million from Korea Credit Bureau. These are just some of the incidents.
According to the report, the amount successful breaches seen this year have jumped by nearly 60% compared to 2013. In addition to that, the number of exposed records as a result of these breaches has increased by over 45%. In fact, the above-mentioned hacker attacks have already found a place among the 10 biggest breaches in history.
The most common type of exposed information includes passwords (70.1%), usernames (60%), as well as emails (57.1%). The most common type of breach was hacking with a share of nearly 80% and fraud with 20.7%.
The good news is that the popularity of certain types of attacks has declined. Well-known hacking methods like virus attacks and phishing have witnessed a great slowdown. In addition, the number of hacking incidents has decreased.
Nevertheless, the breaches for a single “successful” incident has increased greatly. For instance, 10 of the incidents that took place this year exposed over 1 million records. In other words, hacker attacks have become more large-scaled than ever.
Despite that, cyber criminals are not targeting only large corporations. According to the research, smaller companies, as well as consumers are also not safe. That is especially the case if they are based in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil or Russia. These five countries are among the most attacked in the world. It was discovered that over 45% of all the incidents today occur either in the United Stated or in the U.K.
