For data security, 2015 is predicted to be as bad or worse as 2014, as more sensitive and confidential information and transactions are moved to the digital space and become vulnerable to attack, according to The Ponemon Institute’s study 2014: A Year of Mega Breaches.
The number of data breaches tracked in 2014 hit a record high of 783, according to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, sponsored by IDT911. This represents a 27.5-percent increase over the number of breaches reported in 2013, and an increase of 18.3 percent over the previous high of 662 breaches tracked in 2010.
I recently interviewed Marc Goodman, founder of the Future Crimes Institute and author of the recently published book “Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable, and What We Can Do About It.” In his book, Goodman sets forth with great precision the frightening extent to which current and emerging technologies are harming national and corporate security, putting people’s lives at risk, eroding privacy, and even altering our perceptions of reality.
In 2009, Heartland Payment Systems announced that it had suffered a devastating breach: 134 million credit cards were exposed through SQL Injection attacks used to install spyware on Heartland’s data systems. The company processes payments for debit, prepaid and credit cards, in addition to online payments and checks and payroll services.
Frankly, it’s costing U.S. businesses more than other nations’ enterprises worldwide, according to data collected in the 2014 Cost of Cyber Crime Study: United Statesfrom the Ponemon Institute and HP Enterprise Security. The mean cost of cyber crime for a company in the U.S. last year was $12.7 million per year; other countries’ enterprises mean costs ranged from Germany’s $8.13 million to Russia’s mere $3.33 million. The study observes a $1.1 million (or 9.3 percent) increase in cyber crime costs for the U.S. from last year’s report.
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