Breaches 'everyday occurrences'

Claims that data breaches have gone from being exceptional events to everyday occurrences have been bolstered with the news that US medical giant Community Health Systems has lost 4.5 million patient records in a hack attack.
According to SafeNet, 237 security breaches took place between April and June this year that compromised more than 175 million customer records of personal and financial information worldwide.
For the first half of 2014, more than 375 million customer records were stolen or lost as a result of 559 breaches worldwide.
The retail industry had more data records compromised than any other sector during the second quarter, with more than 145 million records stolen or lost. Less than 1% of the breaches during the second quarter were secure breaches where strong encryption solutions protected the data from being used.
And, according to Trend Micro’s 2Q 2014 Security Roundup Report, the threats entered new and unprecedented territory with the expiration of security support for Windows XP and the Heartbleed event.
It claims that Heartbleed is the broadest vulnerability yet found, affecting not just websites but mobile devices, desktop applications, mobile apps and embedded systems that power the emerging “Internet of things” .
The report added: “It would be a mistake to assume that more traditional threats are on the wane as these newer threats emerge and grow. Familiar threats like spam, phishing, and malware are only growing, not declining.
“As we prepare for the arrival of the Internet of Things with its new threats (some of which we can’t even begin to imagine) it’s clear that quarter by quarter, the world gets more, not less dangerous. Criminals and bad actors aren’t going away any time soon.”