During the second quarter of 2025, data breaches exposed more than ** million records worldwide. Since the first quarter of 2020, the highest number of data records were exposed in the third quarter of ****, more than *** billion data sets. Data breaches remain among the biggest concerns of company leaders worldwide. The most common causes of sensitive information loss were operating system vulnerabilities on endpoint devices. Which industries see the most data breaches? Meanwhile, certain conditions make some industry sectors more prone to data breaches than others. According to the latest observations, the public administration experienced the highest number of data breaches between 2021 and 2022. The industry saw *** reported data breach incidents with confirmed data loss. The second were financial institutions, with *** data breach cases, followed by healthcare providers. Data breach cost Data breach incidents have various consequences, the most common impact being financial losses and business disruptions. As of 2023, the average data breach cost across businesses worldwide was **** million U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, a leaked data record cost about *** U.S. dollars. The United States saw the highest average breach cost globally, at **** million U.S. dollars.

In 2024, the number of data compromises in the United States stood at 3,158 cases. Meanwhile, over 1.35 billion individuals were affected in the same year by data compromises, including data breaches, leakage, and exposure. While these are three different events, they have one thing in common. As a result of all three incidents, the sensitive data is accessed by an unauthorized threat actor. Industries most vulnerable to data breaches Some industry sectors usually see more significant cases of private data violations than others. This is determined by the type and volume of the personal information organizations of these sectors store. In 2024 the financial services, healthcare, and professional services were the three industry sectors that recorded most data breaches. Overall, the number of healthcare data breaches in some industry sectors in the United States has gradually increased within the past few years. However, some sectors saw decrease. Largest data exposures worldwide In 2020, an adult streaming website, CAM4, experienced a leakage of nearly 11 billion records. This, by far, is the most extensive reported data leakage. This case, though, is unique because cyber security researchers found the vulnerability before the cyber criminals. The second-largest data breach is the Yahoo data breach, dating back to 2013. The company first reported about one billion exposed records, then later, in 2017, came up with an updated number of leaked records, which was three billion. In March 2018, the third biggest data breach happened, involving India’s national identification database Aadhaar. As a result of this incident, over 1.1 billion records were exposed.

As of June 2025, the most significant data breach incident in the United States was the Yahoo data breach that dates back to 2013-2016. Impacting over three billion online users, this incident still remains one of the most significant data breaches worldwide. The second-biggest case was the January 2021 data breach at Microsoft, involving about 30 thousand companies in the United States and around 60 thousand companies around the world.

As of 2024, the average cost of a data breach in the United States amounted to **** million U.S. dollars, down from **** million U.S. dollars in the previous year. The global average cost per data breach was **** million U.S. dollars in 2024. Cost of a data breach in different countries worldwide Data breaches impose a big threat for organizations globally. The monetary damage caused by data breaches has increased in many markets in the past decade. In 2023, Canada followed the U.S. by data breach costs, with an average of **** million U.S. dollars. Since 2019, the average monetary damage caused by loss of sensitive information in Canada has increased notably. In the United Kingdom, the average cost of a data breach in 2024 amounted to around **** million U.S. dollars, while in Germany it stood at **** million U.S. dollars. The cost of data breach by industry and segment Data breach costs vary depending on the industry and segment. For the fourth consecutive year, the global healthcare sector registered the highest costs of data breach, which in 2024 amounted to about **** million U.S. dollars. Financial institutions ranked second, with an average cost of *** million U.S. dollars for a data breach. Detection and escalation was the costliest segment in data breaches worldwide, with **** U.S. dollars on average. The cost for lost business ranked second, while response following a breach came across as the third-costliest segment.

As of 2025, the mean number of days to identify the data breaches was *** days, six days faster than in the previous year. The mean time companies needed to contain the breaches in the measured year was ** days. In comparison, in 2021, it took organizations *** days to identify and ** days to address the data breaches.

Between March 2024 and February 2025, the highest average cost of a data breach, nearly **** million U.S. dollars, was detected in the healthcare industry. The financial sector ranked second, with **** million U.S. dollars on average per breach. The global average data breach cost in the measured period was **** million U.S. dollars. Data breaches in the public sector cost relatively lower, an average of **** million U.S. dollars during the measured period.

The largest reported data leakage as of January 2025 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. The National Public Data Breach was announced in August 2024. The incident became public when personally identifiable information of individuals became available for sale on the dark web. Overall, the security professionals estimate the leakage of nearly three billion personal records. The next significant data leakage was the March 2018 security breach of India's national ID database, Aadhaar, with over 1.1 billion records exposed. This included biometric information such as identification numbers and fingerprint scans, which could be used to open bank accounts and receive financial aid, among other government services.

Cybercrime - the dark side of digitalization As the world continues its journey into the digital age, corporations and governments across the globe have been increasing their reliance on technology to collect, analyze and store personal data. This, in turn, has led to a rise in the number of cyber crimes, ranging from minor breaches to global-scale attacks impacting billions of users – such as in the case of Yahoo. Within the U.S. alone, 1802 cases of data compromise were reported in 2022. This was a marked increase from the 447 cases reported a decade prior. The high price of data protection As of 2022, the average cost of a single data breach across all industries worldwide stood at around 4.35 million U.S. dollars. This was found to be most costly in the healthcare sector, with each leak reported to have cost the affected party a hefty 10.1 million U.S. dollars. The financial segment followed closely behind. Here, each breach resulted in a loss of approximately 6 million U.S. dollars - 1.5 million more than the global average.

As of February 2025, the United States ranked first by the average cost of a data breach, ***** million U.S. dollars. The average cost of data breaches in the Middle East was **** million U.S. dollars. Benelux followed in the ranking, with **** million U.S. dollars. In the measured period, the global average data breach cost was **** million U.S. dollars. Phishing scams in the U.S. Breached data often ends up in the hands of threat actors who use it for malicious purposes, including online scams. Phishing continues to be a major threat in North America, particularly on smartphones. In the second quarter of 2023, the region recorded the highest number of phishing and malicious attack attempts globally. The United States was particularly affected, with ** percent of U.S. citizens reporting being targeted by scam texts, e-mails, and calls on a daily basis. Additionally, phishing and spoofing were the most common types of cybercrime, impacting *** thousand individuals in 2023. These attacks led to financial losses, with U.S. victims reporting nearly ** billion U.S. dollars in damages throughout the year. U.S. users and data privacy Despite only ** percent of internet users in the United States being highly knowledgeable about data privacy and cybersecurity, a significant portion of users demonstrated caution and awareness in protecting their information. In fact, over half of surveyed U.S. users reported being somewhat confident in knowing the right steps to take in the event of a cyberattack. Furthermore, ** percent of U.S. users actively decline cookies on websites, reflecting their increasing concern for data protection. Many respondents also take additional steps to safeguard their digital privacy, such as limiting or avoiding clicking on ads as well as not answering phone calls due to cybersecurity risks.

As of February 2024, the global average cost per data breach amounted to **** million U.S. dollars, an increase from **** million U.S. dollars in the previous year. The average cost of a data breach varied across sectors, with the highest average cost in the healthcare industry.

In 2024, numerous data breach incidents were disclosed, causing uncertainty among customers. Some of the incidents have refused to disclose the exact number of individuals impacted, so the impact in these cases is only estimated. The largest data breach is believed to have impacted every American, with around ************* records being breached. A UK-based pathology lab, Synnovis, saw a ransomware attack in July 2024, which impacted approximately *** million patients.

Between the third quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2025, the number of records exposed in data breaches in the United States decreased significantly. In the most recent measured period, over **** million records were reported as leaked, down from around ****** million in the third quarter of 2024.

Between January and September 2024, healthcare organizations in the United States saw 491 large-scale data breaches, resulting in the loss of over 500 records. This figure has increased significantly in the last decade. To date, the highest number of large-scale data breaches in the U.S. healthcare sector was recorded in 2023, with a reported 745 cases.

Data breaches cost companies considerably less had they deployed security automation. In 2024, a data breach cost an organization that extensively used security automation 3.84 million U.S. dollars on average, compared to 5.72 million U.S. dollars on average for an organization with no such deployment.

Since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implementation Europe-wide on the 25th of May 2018, the highest number of personal data breaches as of January 2024 were reported in the Netherlands, a total of around *******. The Netherlands ranked second, with more than ******* personal data breach notifications.

As of 2024, the average cost of a data breach in the financial industry worldwide was **** million U.S. dollars, up from **** U.S. dollars in 2024. The global average cost of a data breach across all studied industries was **** million U.S. dollars.

In 2024, the average cost of an industrial data breach reached its peak with an average of 5.56 million U.S. dollars, up from 4.73 million U.S. dollars in 2023. In comparison, the global average cost of a data breach across all studied industries was 4.88 million U.S. dollars.

As of 2024, the average cost of a data breach in Canada was **** U.S. dollars, down from **** million U.S. dollars in the previous year. The global average cost per data breach was **** million U.S. dollars as of 2024, up from **** million U.S. dollars recorded in 2023.

According to a 2024 survey, 63 percent of companies worldwide planned to increase their cybersecurity investment following a data breach. This represents a 12-percent increase from the previous year.

A survey conducted in May 2024 found that 56 percent of the respondents in the United States were not likely at all to trust a company that had experienced data breaching with their personal data. The same trend was reflected among different age groups, as the majority of them were not likely to trust companies post-data breach. A significant share of 76 percent of adults between the age of 45 and 54 were not likely to share their personal information with a company after a data breach. While approximately half of users aged between 25 and 44 were not at all likely to trust such companies in the future.

Between 2008 and 2024, the most significant data breach in the financial industry worldwide was detected in 2019 in the United States at the First American Financial Corporation. This data breach caused the leakage of *** million financial and personal records. The financial industry is one of the most targeted sectors by cyberattacks that lead to data breaches. However, cyber-attacks are not the only reason for a data breach. Sometimes data compromise occurs due to other reasons, such as system errors.