Reported Data Breaches in 2010 - Numbers to Increase in 2011

In 2010, 662 breaches were reported exposing a total of 16,200,000 records. This equates to approximately 24,471 records per breach. Sixty-two percent of these breaches involved Social Security numbers and 26% of 2010’s breaches involved credit or debit cards.

The most common ways breaches occurred include hacking into computer systems (17%), theft or loss of laptops, flash drives (16.6%), insider actions (15.4%), and accidental exposure (10.7%).

According to an article published by Identity Theft Resource Center, an estimated 10% to 15% of breaches are actually reported. With cybercrime and data thefts on the rise, breaches will increase, but will the number of reported breaches also grow?  As state and federal government data breach regulations and PCI and FTC rules become more stringent and are enforced, we will likely see more publicized breaches.