Publicly reported data breaches down 52%, exposed records way up!

Although the number of publicly reported data breaches stands at its lowest in five years, the number of records exposed is more than four times higher than any previously reported time period, a Risk Based Security report reveals.

“The striking differences between 2020 and prior years brings up many questions,” commented Inga Goddijn, Executive Vice President at Risk Based Security. “Why is the breach count low compared to prior years? What is driving the growth in the number of records exposed? And perhaps most importantly, is this a permanent change in the data breach landscape?”

The report explores in detail how supply chain disruptions, brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, has impacted data breach reporting and influenced other trends. In addition, Risk Based Security explains the cause behind the alarming amount of records exposed.

“Misconfigured databases and services have been the key driver behind the growing number of records exposed. When entire databases are left open and freely accessible, a considerable amount of data is put at risk. It is a small handful of these events in Q2 that are responsible for the explosion in the number of records exposed. In the second quarter of 2020, just two breaches alone were responsible for more than 18 billion of the 27 billion records put at risk,” Goddijn concluded.