As the world embarks on the digital transformation journey, corporations and governments have been increasing their reliance on technology to collect, analyse, and store personal data. This, in turn, has led to a rise in the number of cybercrimes, ranging from minor breaches to global-scale attacks impacting billions of users.
The largest reported data leakage was the Cam4 data breach in March 2020, which exposed more than 10 billion data records. The second-largest data breach in history so far, the Yahoo data breach, occurred in 2013. The company initially reported about one billion exposed data records, but after an investigation, the company updated the number, revealing that three billion accounts were affected.
As of 2022, the average cost of a single data breach across all industries worldwide stood at around $4.35mn. This was found to be most costly in the healthcare sector, with each leak reported to have cost the affected party a hefty $10.1mn. The financial segment followed close behind, where each breach resulted in a loss of approximately $6mn, which is $1.5mn more than the global average.
