data breaches

There's a tendency to blame hackers for security breaches resulting in critical data being compromised. However, a new study finds that, in many cases, human negligence and system problems are also to blame. Recently, security firm Symantec and the ... Ponemon Institute carried out a study investigating the causes of serious data breaches. The findings were quite astounding: in more than one in three cases human error or negligence was to blame for a hack. Another 29 per cent of breaches were the result of system malfunctions. Human Error, System Fails to Blame for Data Breaches This means that, ... (view more)

According to a recent report, the number of records compromised by data breaches fell dramatically in 2010. While that makes for welcome news, the number of actual breaches was much, much higher last year than in 2009. The figures come from ... Verizon's business department, which carries out investigations into security breaches as a commercial service. Unlike its figures for 2009, the company included details of some cases provided by the US Secret Service for the first time in 2010. That makes a direct comparison very tricky, though it turns out the overall trends are clear. Three Times More ... (view more)

The Washington Post reports that at least 8.3 million personal and financial records of consumers were potentially compromised by data spills or breaches at businesses, universities and government agencies in the first quarter of 2008, according to ... a report released from the Identity Theft Resource Center. The Identity Theft Resource Center ( ITRC ), based in San Diego tracked public reports of 167 data breaches in the first three months of 2008. 448 data breaches were recorded in 2007 by the ITRC. Detailed breakdowns from the first quarter of 2008 are available from the ITRC here (PDF) and ... (view more)