C&M Software Blog Are You Safe from Data Breaches in 2016?

As the year wound down in 2015, we took a moment to look at some of the biggest data breaches and hacks that companies and consumers suffered. Looking forward to 2016, we hoped security would improve, but according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) there have been 227 data breaches recorded through April 5, 2016 and more than 6.2 million records have been exposed since the start of the year, an increase of about 10% over last year's numbers so far. According to the ITRC report, some of the data breaches already experienced in 2016 are: Verizon Enterprise SolutionsOver 1.5 million records affected The telecommunication's giant is generally called upon to help respond to and overcome some of the world's largest data breaches, but this year the tables turned. Verizon experienced its own data breach in 2016 involving the theft and resale of customer data. The hacker advertised the sale of a database containing the affected information of about 1.5 million customers for $100,000 or in pieces of 100,000 records for $10,000 a piece.Note: The ITRC report indicates that the business sector accounts for the largest number of the total breaches so far this year, with more than 1.9 million exposed records in 114 incidents. That represents 46.2% of the incidents and 17.1% of the exposed records.Office of Child Support EnforcementOver 5 million records affectedA personal laptop was taken from a federal building in Washington State in February, but no news of a breach was reported until late March, raising questions about the breach response actions. According to an Associated Press report, burglars broke into the Office of Child Support Enforcement and physically stole hard drives and the laptop which contained up to 5 million names and Social security numbers.Note: The ITRC report indicates the government/military sector has suffered eleven data breaches so far this year, representing about 45.7% of the total number of records exposed and 4.5% of the incidents. More than 5 million records have been compromised in the government/military sector to date in 2016.Centene Corp.Over 950,000 individuals affectedCentene Corp., a health insurer, suffered a major healthcare data breach and stated that it was missing six computers hard drives that contain the health records of about 950,000 individuals. These hard drives contained information of individuals in the system from 2009-2015 including names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers, member ID numbers, and other health information.Note: The ITRC report indicates the medical/health care sector has posted 36.4% of all data breaches to date this year. The number of records exposed in these breaches totaled nearly 3.9 million so far in 2016. Protecting our information in 2016 should remain at the top of the list of concerns and both physical and cloud security need to be implemented and strengthened by small and large companies alike to keep sensitive information safe. Learn about how KUMRAM can protect both you and your users quickly and easily.