Data breaches are down but hackers are more selective: Symantec

The latest data breach figures from Symantec present a ‘good news, bad news’ scenario.

Symantec’s August 2012 Intelligence Report compares the number ofbreaches for the first eight months of this year with the same periodof 2011. There were an average of 14 data breaches per month so far in2012, down from 16.5 from January to August of 2011.

And the average number of identities stolen during those incidents wascut in half from 2011 to 2012 during the months of January to August.

Data breach figues are down butthere’s still cause for concern, Symantec says. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Sounds like good news. But the bad news is that, as Symantec cautions,hackers may just be getting smarter and more strategic.

“It could be that hackers aren’t going after the largest data breachesthey can pull off but rather smaller breaches that contain moresensitive information,” the report suggests. “That doesn’t mean thatthe threat has passed. Rather it’s possible data breaches today havesimply become more targeted.”

“The information (hackers) are stealing could very well be smaller insize, but more useful for criminal activities,” Symantec’s report says.

And although hackers are still to blame for most of the breaches (40per cent) the rest of us can bear some responsibility too: 21 per centof breaches result from data being made public accidentally and 19 percent are due to theft or loss.

Source | Symantec

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Christine Wong
Christine Wonghttp://www.itbusiness.ca
Christine Wong has been an on-air reporter for a national daily show on Rogers TV and at High Tech TV, a weekly news magazine on CTV's Ottawa affiliate. She was also an associate producer at Report On Business Television (now called BNN) and CBC's The Hour With George Stroumboulopoulos. As an associate producer at Slice TV, she helped launch two national daily talk shows, The Mom Show and Three Takes. Recently, she was a Staff Writer at ITBusiness.ca and is now a freelance contributor.

Featured Story

How the CTO can Maintain Cloud Momentum Across the Enterprise

Embracing cloud is easy for some individuals. But embedding widespread cloud adoption at the enterprise level is...

Related Tech News

Get ITBusiness Delivered

Our experienced team of journalists brings you engaging content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives delivered directly to your inbox.

Featured Tech Jobs