Report: Nearly 200 Million Records Compromised In Q1

More than 250 data breaches occurred in the first quarter of 2014, resulting in the compromise of nearly 200 million records, according to a report published this week.

According to SafeNet's "Breach Level Index," the pace of compromised data in Q1 amounted to approximately 93,000 records per hour, a 233 percent increase over the same quarter in 2013.

Interestingly, despite much discussion of retail security following breaches at Target and other retailers in Q4 2013, the retail industry accounted for just 1 percent of the records lost in Q1, and just 10 percent of the breaches. The financial industry was hit hardest during Q4, accounting for 58 percent of records lost. The technology industry accounted for 20 percent of lost records. The healthcare industry was hit hard in terms of breach events, accounting for 24 percent of all breaches, but only 9 percent of data records lost.

South Korea took the top spot of all countries with four of the top five breaches worldwide and a loss of 158 million records across a variety of industries. This represents 79 percent of the total number of reported breached records worldwide. These four breaches included the Korea Credit Bureau, Korean Medical Association, Korea Telecom, and Naver, a major Korean search portal. While the number of South Korean breached records was extremely high, the number of breach incidents in Asia/Pacific as a whole accounted for only 7 percent of the total number of global breaches, dwarfed by the 78 percent (199 incidents) that occurred in North America and 13 percent in Europe.

Malicious outsiders accounted for 156 (62 percent) of total incidents during the first quarter, compromising more than 86 million records stolen. Malicious insiders accounted for just 11 percent of total incidents, but they were much more effective, accounting for 52 percent of records stolen. Accidental loss represented 25 percent of total incidents, while hacktivist and state-sponsored attacks added up to just 2 percent of the total.