In 2022, it seems that not a week went by without news about data breaches. There were many high-profile incidents (as in the year before last), and the number of affected users increased by 128 million.
The 17th annual data loss report from ITRC, a nonprofit organization created to support victims of data crimes, shows that there were 1,802 data breaches and thefts in the U.S. last year, just 60 fewer than the all-time high 1862 in 2021.
It seems that 2022 could have seen even more data breaches if not for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which distracted Russian hackers, and volatility in the cryptocurrency market. ITRC notes that the number of violations increased steadily in the second half of the year.
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Although incidents decreased, the number of victims of hacking increased by 41.5% year-on-year – from 294 million to 422 million people. Most of it took place on Twitter. The company, now owned by Elon Musk, faced the largest leak (221.5 million affected), as well as the sixth largest (5.48 million). However, Twitter insists that the biggest incident has nothing to do with its hack.
We were last informed about the notification that Twitter user data was signed sold online. After a receptive investigation, we do not realize that this data is oriented from the cultivation of our systems. Read more here:
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 11, 2023
Other major breaches in the top ten include the Neopets, AT&T and Cash App Investing hacks. The report makes no mention of the recent LastPass incident, but the company has yet to say how many customers were affected by the breach. The ITRC notes that 66% of public data breach reports did not include information about victims or attacks.
While cyberattacks remained the primary hacking method, attacks on supply chains increased last year, surpassing malware-related compromises by nearly 40%. The supply chain attacks, which targeted 1,743 organizations, affected more than ten million people.
Names and Social Security numbers were the main body of personal information stolen in the hacks. Personal data is used mainly for fraud, compromise, takeover of bank cards and online accounts.
A positive trend in the past year is the decrease in the number of hacks and vulnerabilities related to cloud storage (75% fewer cases), while physical attacks (such as device theft) accounted for only 46 out of 1,802 cases.
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Source: TechSpot
