Blog
02.08.2019

The Year-Over-Year Trend of Significant Cyber Attacks Is Increasing Dramatically

With comparison infographic of cyber attacks 2017 & 2018

Significant data breach events have reached the unwelcome distinction of becoming a near daily occurrence. In 2005, the number of significant breaches was under 200. In 2017, that number was 1,300. The actual number of cyber hacks in 2018 over 2017 went down, but measuring “significance” in terms of millions or billions of people affected and by the critical data compromised, the severity of breach impact has only increased, and considerably.

In 2017, a significant cyber breach happened about every week and a half. Last year in 2018, a significant breach occurred about every 3 days. Now in 2019, we’ve logged 18 data breaches so far this year (as of February 7), nearly 4 times as many as this time last year.

To quantify it in different measurements, in the Fall of 2018, a report came out that 945 data breaches resulted in 4.5 billion compromised data records globally, just in the first 6 months of 2018. The severity of breaches increased 133% 2018 over 2017, and billions of people were affected.

For 2019, so far, as we see the number of breaches already surpassing this time last year, is any data safe? Are any networks sufficiently protected? The attacks are indiscriminate – striking all industries, any kind of company, any type of individual.

See our infographic of significant data breaches that occurred in 2017 and 2018.

20190103_virsec_self protection infographic_web

Sources:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-number-of-data-breaches-is-soaring-in-one-chart-2018-02-26

https://www.gemalto.com/press/pages/data-breaches-compromised-4-5-billion-records-in-first-half-of-2018.aspx