The number of reported data breaches this year fell in the third quarter of the year. However, billions more files were exposed globally, reaching a total of 36 billion, according to Risk Based Security . The security firm said in a report that 2020 was the worst year on record, even before an additional 8.3 billion files were exposed in the third quarter. This includes not only stolen data, but also cloud- based misconfigurations that can compromise such information without necessarily leading to a malicious actor. In addition, the number of data breach reports in the first three quarters of the year fell by 51% to 2,953.
Inga Goddijn, Senior Executive Sales Manager at Risk Based Security, said this could be explained by the increase in ransomware attacks. Although these attacks accounted for 21% of reported breaches in the first three quarters, many of them may not have been recorded yet.
Specifically, Goddijn said that while many of these attacks are now clear breaches , the nature of the data compromised prevents some organizations from reporting the security incident to regulators and making it public. Goddijn added that while the compromised data may be sensitive to the target organization, the incident may not be reported.
The report also noted that the healthcare was the most affected by breaches, accounting for 11.5% of the total incidents that occurred.
It is noteworthy that two breaches that occurred in the third quarter of 2020 each exposed over one billion files, while four breaches exposed over 100 million files. Thus, these six breaches total roughly eight billion exposed files.
The report's findings appear to align with those of the Identity Theft Resource Center, which has publicly reported breaches that have occurred in the U.S.It recently noted that the volume of such incidents is "well on track for its lowest rate since 2015."
