Aadhaar breach incident exposed 1 billion records: Gemalto’s report

As many as 4.5 billion data records have been compromised worldwide owing to 945 data breaches in first half of 2018 where almost 1 billion records were exposed in the Aadhaar breach incident, a report by Netherlands based digital security company Gemalto stated on Monday.

In comparison to the same period in 2017, number of data breaches has dropped but the number of lost, stolen or compromised records increased by a 133%. India represents for 37% of the global breaches in terms of records compromised or stolen or revealed.

North America makes up the majority of all breaches and the number of compromised records, 59% and 72% respectively. United States is the most popular target for attacks accounting more than 57% of global breaches.

According to the 2018 report, one out of 12 breaches were protected by encryption to render the information useless, a zero percent compared to the first six months of 2017.

“Obviously, this year social media has been the top industry and threat vector for the compromise of personal data, a trend we can expect to continue with more and more sectors leveraging these platforms to reach key audiences, especially political teams gearing up for major elections,” said Jason Hart, VC and chief technology officer for data protection at Gemalto.

The report published different types of data breaches of which malicious outsiders accounted for 90% of stolen, compromised or lost data in 2018 in India.

Identity thefts are also a leading type of breach, though the total number of data breaches has decreased by 28% compared to second half of 2017. But number of records stolen represents a 99% of all records stolen.

The most affected sector is healthcare that accounts for 26% reported data breaches.