Data Breaches Up 47% in 2008

In a down year, data breaches went up, again.

In 2008, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there were 656 reported data breaches, an increase of 47% from the 2007 total of 446.

The breaches were reported in the following sectors: business (240), education (131), government/military (110), health/medical (97), and financial/credit (78).

"The financial, banking, and credit industries have remained the most proactive groups in terms of data protection over all three years," the ITRC said in a statement. "The government/military category has dropped nearly 50% since 2006, moving from the highest number of breaches to the third highest."

With the business sector accounting for 36.6% of the breach total in 2008, up from 28.9% of the 2007 total and 21% of the 2006 total, the ITRC observes that the business community needs to improve its data security measures.An analysis published on the Chronicles of Dissent