According to an annual report by the Identity Theft Resource Center, the number of U.S. data breaches tracked in 2018 decreased from last year’s all-time high of 1,632 breaches by 23 percent (or 1,244 breaches), but the reported number of consumer records exposed containing sensitive personally identifiable information jumped 126 percent from the 197,612,748 records exposed in 2017 to 446,515,334 records this past year.
Another critical finding was the number of non-sensitive records compromised, not included in the above totals, an additional 1.68 billion exposed records, said The 2018 End-of-Year Data Breach Report. While email-related credentials are not considered sensitive personally identifiable information, a majority of consumers use the same username/email and password combinations across multiple platforms creating serious vulnerability.