Verizon: More breaches but less data lost. Huh?!

Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report for last year is a bit of a head scratcher. It shows that while the number of data breaches from cyber attacks rose, the amount of compromised records lost has fallen.

While there were 760 data breaches recorded by Verizon and the U.S. Secret Service in 2010 (up from about 140 in 2009), there were "only 4 million" compromised records involved (way down from 144 million in 2009), according to the Verizon 2011 Data Breach Investigations Report scheduled to be released on Tuesday. The figures represent both a record high number of incidents and a record low records lost amount for any of the seven years Verizon has been keeping track.

The seeming contradiction between the low number of records lost and the high number of breaches could relate to the fact that there were fewer massive data breaches as there have been in the past as criminals focus on opportunistic attacks on smaller companies (with 11 to 100 employees) that may not have the best security measures in place, Alex Hutton, principal for research and intelligence at Verizon, told CNET in an interview.

Read more -here-

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