Infographic: The World in Data Breaches

Data security is a major concerns for enterprise and individuals. The increasing sophistication of cyber attacks coupled with the overall lack of cybersecurity has led to the loss of data records on a global scale.

As reported previously by The Scope Weekly, over 5.4 billion accounts were hacked in the past few years, from Equifax, Uber, Sony, Linked and many others, have all fallen victims to data breach and exposed their clients’ data.  The knowledgeable folks at Varonis provided us with the following infographic which features the distribution of breached data records across the world since 2013. The map shows where stolen data is concentrated in different countries, revealing those with the highest ratio of data theft. For instance, the US has over 6 billion compromised records while Canada has 91 million. I included a preview of the map below.

Using data from the Breach Level Index, the infographic presents where these records are concentrated based on the locations of the organizations that reported them.

The map puts into perspective the discrepancies in data records on a global level.

Every second, more than 56 data records are compromised around the world. Our reliance on storing information online and the increase in cybercrime in recent years have placed data security on the global stage.

With you conduct any activity online, you access and leave a trail of data records. From email addresses and birth dates to online banking details and medical files, these sensitive records are at risk when a data breach occurs, leading to identity theft, ransomware, and fraud.

This is a major threat to organizations and consumers alike. Data breaches like the Yahoo breach exposed over 3 billion accounts, while the Equifax breach exposed Social Security numbers of 143 million consumers. When you consider the impact of these breaches on a worldwide scale, the state of our security starts to sound dire.  The map not only shows which countries are “hot spots” of reported data breaches but also reveals the ones with the highest costs and most cyber attacks.

Worried about Ransomware

As Teryl Burt from  TSG Networks said in the article Ramsomware Attacks: How To Protect Your Business, “Remember that the root cause of ransomware infections is email and web pop-ups, and moving to The Cloud allows the business owner to eliminate purchasing, configuring and maintaining complex and expensive hardware and software with the most current and powerful malware protection on the market.”


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