Bad News All Around as Hacking Continues as Top Breach Type

Hacking again was the primary breach incident type, representing 42% of the total breaches identified in July, up 6% from June. Of the breaches caused by hacking, phishing represented 42%.

According to the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center and Providence, R.I.-based CyberScout (formerly IDT911) of the breaches caused by hacking, ransomware following phishing attacks at 25% (down 12% from June). Unauthorized access was identified as the second most common type of attack in 28% of the overall total of breaches in July, experiencing a fall of 5% from last month.

Employee error/negligence/improper disposal/lost exposure was the third most common method of breach, representing 14%, doubling June figures at 7%, of the overall number of breaches in July. Accidental exposure represented 13% of the most common method of breach, up 2% from June. While these types of incidents seldom rise to the primary type of intrusion, they can compromise a high number of records.

The business sector yet again topped the list as the industry facing the most breaches in July at 38% of the overall number, dropping 9% from June figures. With a 6% decrease compared to June, the medical/healthcare sector was the second highest impacted industry affected at 31% of the overall number of breaches identified in July. “Although medical/healthcare ranks second in number of breaches by industry, it has the highest exposure rate of sensitive personal at 1.8 million records exposed; significantly more than the business sector which had the second highest number of records exposed for the month of July (670,000 records with sensitive PII),” the ITRC said. The government/military sector, representing 13% of the total breaches, ranked in the third spot, up 10% from June statistics followed by the educational sector at 10% of total breaches, up 5% from June and lastly the banking/credit/financial sector at 8%.

Hacking affected the business, educational and medical/healthcare sectors uppermost in July, representing 52, 44, and 37% of the respective breaches of each industry. Banking/credit/financial was affected by unauthorized access and hacking equally, as the top forms of attack, at 43%. Employee error/negligence/lost exposure at 36% disturbed the government/military sector the most.

Through the end of July, the ITRC tracked 87 reported breaches for a total of 2,669,941 records. Three breaches stood out as reported in July per the ITRC:

• Popular department stores Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s fell victim to data theft. Customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, birthdays and credit/ debit card numbers with expiration dates were accessed online by an unauthorized third party.
• UnityPoint Health experienced a phishing email attack that compromised its business email system, leaving 1.4 million patients with exposed information. Information included addresses, birthdates, medical record numbers, diagnoses, lab results, medications, providers, dates of service and/or insurance, medical, treatment and surgical information. For some individuals: Social Security and/or driver’s license number. A limited (unknown) number of individuals may have had payment card or bank account numbers exposed as well.
• Cloud-based human resources company ComplyRight was the victim of a criminal cyberattack exposing 662,000 individuals, partners, and business customers’ personal information including: names, email addresses, and phone and Social Security numbers of individual tax form recipients. Cybercriminals accessed the information through the ComplyRight web platform, which is used by various websites to prepare tax-related forms for individuals.