Rippleshot Blog

With the halfway mark for 2015 quickly approaching, many consumers have reached a state of data breach fatigue. Nearly every week, a new story comes out where the personal and payment information of U.S. consumers has been compromised due to a data breach.

Earlier this week, Verizon released their annual security report, 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report.  With the help of 70 organizations from around the world, the 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) provides unparalleled insight into the various threats and security incidents that have plagued organizations of all sizes.  We’ve put together some of the key takeaways from the DBIR to highlight some of the major trends ranging from attack methods to the latest data breach trends.

According to the Breach Level Index, over 1 Billion data records were stolen in 2014 - nearly 20% of those including financial information. But where is financial information being compromised, specifically? Rippleshot research has found that over 60% of payment card accounts that got stolen in 2014 can be tied back to five merchant categories.

The number of U.S. data breaches grew 27.5% and hit a record high of 783 in 2014, according to a recent report released by the Identify Theft Resource Center. With data breaches growing at an alarming rate, you should be aware of the latest statistics. If last month's Data Breach Statistics surprised you, the following will be even more concerning:

While 2014 was aptly named "The Year of the Data Breach," 2015 has unfortunately started off in a similar trajectory, with breaches at several parking services and Anthem suffering the largest healthcare breach in history. On their own, these incidents paint a pretty bleak picture for data security, but in aggregate, they're even more alarming.