AfterTek

With 2007 being over and 2008 just starting the Identify Theft Resource Center felt that it was time to gather all of the statistics and see how well or bad they had done when it came to preventing any and all computer breaches. After putting all of the information together it seems that 2006 was a much better year compared to 2007. The amount of public breaches increased 40%. The number of breaches in 2006 was 315. In 2007 that number rose to 443.

Because of those breaches 127 million data records were exposed, whereas In 2006, only 20 million records were exposed. These numbers don’t reflect what happened the last week in December. Linda Foley – for the ITRC – stated that they would have to update their facts and figures. Addind the new information for the week could have made things a little less bleak – but it seems that they received some bad news during that time.

On Friday, the Tennessean.com reported that someone broke into a Davidson County election office over the Christmas holiday and stole laptops believed to contain the Social Security numbers and personal information for more than 337,000 registered voters in the Tennessee county. That same day, the Pioneer Press in Minnesota reported that a laptop containing the personal information of 219 Minnesotans had been stolen from a Pennsylvania vendor doing business with the Minnesota State Commerce Department.

This year may look like the worst year that the IRTC has faced – but Foley has stated that, “I don’t know whether we’re seeing more breaches because there’s mandatory reporting or because there are more.” One of the largest breaches during the year – T.J. Maxx breach – made up 94 million of exposed information.

Foley nonetheless expressed optimism, noting that in regulated industries like finance and healthcare, there are far fewer breaches than in other areas of business. “Both are highly regulated industries with a number of government agencies looking over their shoulders,” she said. “[But] a lot of the businesses still have not learned how to handle information correctly.” As an example, she points to the fact that only 13 of the data breaches out of 443 reported to date this year involved encrypted data, which is far less vulnerable to unauthorized access or misuse.

While 2007 could fairly be called the year of the data breach, Foley prefers to think of it as the year of data breach awareness. “I think there is a greater awareness this year that is going to have a ripple effect over the next couple of years,” she said. “And hopefully that is going to bring the number of breaches down.”