Data Breaches: Winning the "War" in Google Trends
If you were to ask Google to find everything there is to know about data breaches five years ago, you’d be surprised at how different the amount of results would vary compared to now. For those not familiar with Google Trends, Google analyzes a certain percentage of its web searches to determine how many searches have been done for whatever term/s that have been entered.
We’ve used Google’s technology to help show how over the last eight years, searches for “credit card fraud” and “data breach” have changed. As you can see at the bottom, the interest in credit card fraud over time has slowly decreased as the public has become aware of data breaches and how they affect the consumer. In the last two years, there were three major headlines that sparked an interest in credit card fraud and data breaches.
Credit Card Fraud Going Global
In 2012, NBC News reported on charges being filed on a case involving 18 individuals who were implicated in a $200M global credit card fraud scheme. Starting in 2007, this group operated in at least 28 states, using several thousand fake identities to fraudulently use over 25,000 credit cards to wire funds to 7 countries across the globe. In order to create these fraudulent credit cards, the fraudsters forged various documents including utility bills in order to convince credit card companies that these people actually existed.
When Data Breaches Reached The Tipping Point
One of the most covered headlines of 2013 happened towards the end of the holiday season, just after Target had announced that nearly 40 million credit and debit accounts had been compromised during a data breach. A few days later, PBS Newshour sat down with Steve Surdu of Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm to discuss the ramifications of the retailers data breach and it’s impact on U.S. consumers. For many Americans, Target’s data breach was the first time their personal records had been exposed to cybercriminals, raising awareness on security breaches to an all time high.
From Bad To Worse
But for the third largest retailer in the United States, this was just the beginning down a very long road of recovery and redemption. As more information became available regarding Target’s data breach, it became apparent that the personal records of as many as 70 million customers were exposed. This brought the total to roughly 100 million Americans, affecting close to one out of every three American consumers.
Awareness regarding data breaches and exposure of public records have become prevalent in the last year and we only need to look at this Google Trends report to confirm this statement. As cybercriminals become more effective and skilled at exposing the personal records of consumers, students and healthcare recipients, the methods used to protect these records will have to adapt.
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