Report: cybercriminals exposed over 5 billion records in 2019, costing over $1.2 trillion to U.S

According to data recently released by ForgeRock in the ForgeRock Consumer Identity Breach Report, cybercriminals exposed more than 5 billion data records in 2019, causing more than $1.2 trillion in damage to US organizations. In addition to the more than $654 billion in losses caused by the data breach in 2018, the data breach caused more than $1.8 trillion in damage to the United States in the past two years.

Healthcare has become the most targeted industry in 2019, accounting for 382 violations and a loss of more than US$2.45 billion, a significant increase from the 164 violations that occurred in 2018 and a loss of US$633 million.

Although the medical industry is the most frequently targeted industry, technology companies have suffered the largest number of leaked records. In 2019, the technology industry leaked more than 1.37 billion records and lost more than 250 billion US dollars.

Personally identifiable information (PII) is still the most popular data for attackers and accounts for 98% of the leaked data in 2019, slightly higher than 97% in 2018.

• Unauthorized access was the most common attack vector used in 2019, responsible for 40% of breaches, followed by ransomware and malware at 15% and phishing at 14%.
• By targeting PII and leveraging unauthorized access, cybercriminals highlight how weaknesses in enterprises’ identity and access management (IAM) practices increasingly allow for greater volumes and more sensitive types of data to be pilfered.
• In fact, social security numbers (SSNs) were the most targeted type of data compromised as they were exposed in 384 breaches in 2019.

You can get the full report here.