U.S. Data Breaches Hit All-Time High

There were 1,093 tracked data breaches in 2016, a new all-time high according to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) and CyberScout. The previous record was 780, recorded in 2015, making a 40 per cent increase last year. However, the report asks whether it is the number of incidents that has risen or just the reporting of them by states. "For the past 10 years, the ITRC has been aware of the under-reporting of data breach incidents on the national level and the need for more state or federal agencies to make breach notifications more publicly available,” explained Eva Velasquez, President and CEO, ITRC. “This year we have seen a number of states take this step by making data breach notifications public on their websites.”