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  • The Open Security Foundation’s Data Breach Reports – Good News and Bad News

    Posted on February 7th, 2010 admin No comments

    While the incidence of data breaches in 2009 declined to 436 from the 717 incidents reported in 2008, the number of records affected increased from 86.3 million in 2008 to nearly 218.8 million records in 2009.

    According to a report from the Open Security Foundation, Glen Allen, Va., the business sector had the most breaches in 2009, numbering 205. Government was a distant second with 92 breaches, followed by education with 81 breaches and medical with 65 breaches.

    Of these incidents, 358 involved names and addresses, while 278 involved Social Security numbers and 101 involved date of birth, according to the Open Security Foundation. Seventy-three breach incidents involved credit card information, and 71 incidents involved medical information. Financial information was released in 61 incidents, while account information was involved in 56 incidents.                                                     

    In 2008, the business sector had the largest incidence of breaches with 385, followed by the education sector with 145, government with 101 and medical with 98 incidents, according to the Open Security Foundation.

    The bulk of the incidents, 588, involved name and address information in 2008, while 516 incidents involved Social Security information, according to the Open Security Foundation. Financial and account information were involved in 88 and 74 incidents, respectively.

    Additional information on The Open Security Foundation’s data breach reports can be found at:
    http://datalossdb.org/reports.