A staggering 110 million accounts were compromised in the second quarter of 2023, marking a substantial increase of 2.6 times from the previous quarter’s 43.2 million breaches.
A report by Surfshark sheds light on the state of global data breaches during Q2 2023 while comparing it with the previous quarter. The second quarter saw a two-fold increase in breaches amounting to 855 account breaches per minute, dwarfing the previous quarter’s 334 accounts per minute rate.
The United States emerged as the epicentre of breached accounts with a jaw-dropping 830% increase from 5.4 million in Q1 to a staggering 49.8 million breaches in Q2. This surge contributed to 45% of the global total for Q2, underscoring the country’s vulnerability to cyber threats and the inadequacy of current protective measures. Almost one in two accounts breached in Q2 were of American origin.
Russia also witnessed an increase in breached accounts from 6.8 million to 15.3 million, which accounted for less than 14% of global breaches in the same period. Spain and France demonstrated a slight uptick in compromised accounts, while Turkey witnessed an alarming surge, catapulting from 120,000 breached accounts in Q1 to 2.8 million in Q2.
While other countries saw an increase in breaches, the trend in India seems to be going in the opposite direction. Surfshark’s analysis showed that the breach rate in India is 44% lower in Q2 2023 than in Q1 2023, which amounts to ten Indian accounts breached per minute, making it the seventh most breached country in the world.
If we consider the region-wise statistics, North America was the most affected region, followed by Europe and Asia.
Breach density, measured by dividing a country’s total breach number by its population, emerged as a pivotal metric, highlighting the likelihood of individuals being affected by data breaches in different countries. Despite not being among the top breached countries, Finland exhibited a concerning breach density, underlining the criticality of accounting for population size. Both the US and Russia stood out with high breach densities, demonstrating the intensified risks faced by their residents.
“Such alarming increase in data breaches highlights that the current data protection measures are insufficient, and sensitive information remains at risk as cybercriminals continue to access it in ever higher numbers”, said Agneska Sablovskaja, Lead Researcher at Surfshark.
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