It not only feels like 2014 is a terrible year for data security, it is, at least in the U.S., where the Identity Theft Resource Center keeps track.
The centre’s most recent count (as of Sept.23) shows there have been 568 breaches for far this year in the United States, exposing over 75 million pieces of private information.
As SC Magazine notes, its a 29.4 per cent increase over the number of breaches reported a year ago. The 75 million number includes the 56 million records that were swept away in the Home Depot exploit.
It doesn’t include the just-announced discovery of a second attack on the SuperValue grocery chain, which was hit in June and July. According to Computerworld U.S., the company said that despite new defences raised after the first attack was found, new malware captured payment card data between Aug. 27 and Sept. 21. in Minnesota.
While SuperValue says data was captured, it doesn’t believe the information made its way out.
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center numbers, despite the attention paid to breaches at U.S. retailers, attackers have switched targets over the past year from businesses to medical and health care organizations.
One security expert interviewed by SC Magazine is skeptical of the ability to put a lid on data breaches. “I look at fraud like it’s a balloon,” he is quoted as saying. “You squeeze one end and it comes out somewhere else.”