Cyber Security Statistics 2017: Data Breaches and Cyber Attacks[source: teramind]

In the cyber security world, record setting has an entirely different connotation

It’s one thing to talk in generalities about how massive the data breach problem is, but it’s another thing to understand the actual statistics. The numbers tell a powerful story about how pervasive cyber attacks have become

These 2017 statistics, along with predictions for the coming years, provide eye-opening insight into how cyber attacks impact not only businesses of all sizes across all industries, but almost every person in the world on an individual level.

Record-Setting Year

By December 20, the Identity Theft Resources Center (ITRC) had recorded 1,293 U.S. data breaches in 2017, exposing more than 174 million confidential records. That was 21 percent higher than what was recorded at the same time in 2016.

By year’s end, the total number of breaches was expected to reach a record-setting 1,300. In 2016, the ITRC recorded 1,093 breaches.

Who’s Affected?

The ITRC report broke down the breach results into five industry sectors: business (50.5 percent), medical/healthcare (28.3 percent), educational (8.8 percent), banking/credit/financial (7.1 percent) and government/military (5.3 percent).

Who was affected personally? Almost everyone. A single breach of data analytics company Alteryx exposed sensitive information for 123 million U.S. households. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were about 125.8 million U.S. households in 2016.

Depth of the Dark Web

A massive Dark Web database of 1.4 billion email addresses, usernames and passwords was discovered in 2017, the UK’s Daily Express reported in December.

Security researchers at 4iQ discovered the cyber criminal database, which includes passwords from large breaches like LinkedIn, as well as smaller breaches. Companies mentioned in the database also include Netflix, Gmail and PayPal.

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