Total number of events since they started keeping track on Jan 10, 2005 - 636
2005 count - 116 events
2006 count - 337 events
2007 count -181 events as of July 3: notice the upward trend!
Total number of records affected 158,048,276
Note: The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (the source of the totals listed above) points out that the total numbers of records represents the approximate number of *records* that have been compromised due to security breaches, not necessarily the number of *individuals* affected. The clearinghouse reminds us that some individuals may be the victims of more than one breach, which would affect the totals.
What's the cost of a security breach? Here's an online "calculator" that can be used to arrive at an estimated cost of a breach based on the number of records exposed. (Note: The Data Governance Institute does not endorse the product or the numbers that come out of it.)
The Attrition Web page also provides links to news articles about data breaches.
Attrition provides an open source database
of its data breach records, called the Data Loss Database - Open Source, or DLDOS.
You can import this file (it's a CSV - flat, comma-separated value file) into a database or spreadsheet program
for your own data analysis.
A PDF of law review article on data breach notice laws.
statistical breakdown
by Beth Rosenberg of types of breaches and analysis of industry sector for 2006.
