In 2025, the number of data compromises in the United States stood at 3,322 cases. Meanwhile, over 278.83 million 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. Financial services, healthcare, and professional services were the industry sectors that recorded the 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 a decrease.

Data Breaches Dataset

30,000 Records of cyber-security data breaches

About this dataset

This dataset is a compilation of data from various sources detailing data breaches. These sources include press reports, government news releases, and mainstream news articles. The list includes those involving the theft or compromise of 30,000 or more records, although many smaller breaches occur continually. In addition, the various methods used in the breaches are listed, with hacking being the most common.

Organizations of all types and sizes are susceptible to data breaches, which can have devastating consequences. This dataset can help shed light on which organizations are most at risk and how these breaches occur so that steps can be taken to prevent them in the future

How to use the dataset

There are many ways to use this dataset. Here are a few ideas:

• Use the data to understand which types of organizations are most commonly breached, and what methods are used most often.
• Analyze the data to see if there are any trends or patterns in when or how breaches occur.
• Use the data to create a visualizations or infographic showing the prevalence of data breaches

Research Ideas

• This dataset can be used to identify trends in data breaches in terms of methods used, types of organizations breached, and geographical distribution.

• This dataset can be used to study the effect of data breaches on organizational reputation and customer trust.

• This dataset can be used by organizations to benchmark their own security measures against those of similar organizations that have experienced data breaches

Acknowledgements

License

License: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) - Public Domain Dedication No Copyright - You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. See Other Information.

Columns

File: df_1.csv | Column name | Description | |:----------------------|:---------------------------------------------------------------------| | Entity | The name of the organization that was breached. (String) | | Year | The year when the breach occurred. (Integer) | | Records | The number of records that were compromised in the breach. (Integer) | | Organization type | The type of organization that was breached. (String) | | Method | The method that was used to breach the organization. (String) | | Sources | The sources from which the data was collected. (String) |

During the third 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.

The average cyber attack takes 280 days to identify and contain and it costs an average of about $3.86 million to deal with properly.

Major US Health Data Breaches

500+ Individuals Affected

By Health [source]

About this dataset

This dataset contains detailed information on US health data breaches that affected at least 500 individuals. Since the enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996, organizations and entities covered by the law must report any breach involving unauthorized use or disclosure of protected health information. The required fields in this dataset include: Name of Covered Entity, State, Covered Entity Type, Breach Submission Date, Type of Breach, Location of Breached Information, Business Associate Present and Web Description. With over 860 entries listed in this dataset since 2009 up to December 2019, it provides a deep look into the impact and implications from such breaches on healthcare organizations as well as their patients. This is valuable data not only for healthcare professionals but also for all those interested to learn more about health care security best practices and prevention against future data-related incidents

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How to use the dataset

This dataset contains information about major data breaches that occurred in the United States involving healthcare. It includes information on the name of the covered entity, the state in which it occurred, the type of business involved (e.g. hospital, doctor's office), and a description of what happened and where it happened.

This dataset can be used to identify patterns or trends related to data breach events which could help organizations better understand and mitigate their own risk when dealing with sensitive health data. By analyzing this dataset over time, one could look for correlations between different factors such as geographical location or type of covered entity and likelihood of occurrence of a health data breach event. Similarly, analyzing individual incident reports can also provide additional insight into how specific events unfolded as well as identifying any lessons learned from them that may be relevant for other organizations moving forward.

Additionally, this dataset can be used to review a particular covered entities compliance with existing regulations regarding patient privacy and security protocols related to health data management; by reviewing when breaches occur at any given organization, areas for improvement relating to their existing processes may come into view more readily than simply relying upon periodic audits or inspections alone

Research Ideas

• Creating a visualization of health data breaches across time, including the types of entities affected, the states where they occurred, and the locations of the breached information.
• Analyzing correlations between breach submission date and type or location of breached information to identify trends in data breach activity.
• Using Business Associate Present status to understand which organizations have stricter protocols in place to protect healthcare data from breaches

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the original authors. Data Source

License

License: Dataset copyright by authors - You are free to: - Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. - Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. - You must: - Give appropriate credit - Provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. - ShareAlike - You must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. - Keep intact - all notices that refer to this license, including copyright notices.

Columns

File: breach_report.csv | Column name | Description | |:-------------------------------------|:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Name of Covered Entity | The name of the entity that experienced the data breach. (String) | | State | The geographical state location of the entity that experienced the data breach. (String) | | Covered Entity Type | The type of entity that experience...

As of 2025, the average cost of a data breach in the United States amounted to ***** million U.S. dollars, up from **** million U.S. dollars in the previous year. The global average cost per data breach stood at **** million U.S. dollars. 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 the 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 breaches, 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.

These cybersecurity statistics will help you understand the state of online security and give you a better idea of what it takes to protect yourself.

As of January 2024, about ** percent of organizations in the United Kingdom reported experiencing a data breach accident once a month. A further ** percent said they had encountered a data breach event less than once a month in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, ** percent said they had experienced a data breach incident once a week.

Did the COVID-19 pandemic really affect cybersecurity? Short answer – Yes. Cybercrime is up 600% due to COVID-19.

The largest reported data leakage as of December 2025 was the ***************************** data breach in ************, which exposed ** billion data records. The second-largest data breach in history so far, the ****************, occurred in **********. The National Public Data (NPD) Breach, listed ****** was disclosed in April 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 ***** billion personal records. Another significant data leakage was the March 2018 security breach of India's national ID database, Aadhaar, with over *** 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, ***** cases of data compromise were reported in 2022. This was a marked increase from the *** cases reported a decade prior. The high price of data protection In 2024, the average cost of a single data breach across all industries worldwide stood at **** 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 **** million U.S. dollars. The financial segment followed closely behind. Here, each breach resulted in a loss of **** million U.S. dollars.

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.

Explore key data breach statistics, including incident frequency, affected industries, compromised records, causes, and financial impact!

In this document, comprehensive datasets are presented to advance research on information security breaches. The datasets include data on disclosed information security breaches affecting S&P500 companies between 2020 and 2023, collected through manual search of the Internet. Overall, the datasets include 504 companies, with detailed information security breach and financial data available for 97 firms that experienced a disclosed information security breach. This document will describe the datasets in detail, explain the data collection procedure and shows the initial versions of the datasets. Contact at Tilburg University Francesco Lelli

Over 95% of cybersecurity breaches occur as a result of human error.

Data breaches cost companies and businesses a lot of money. The average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million.

Editor’s Choice

• The Global Cyber Security Market size is expected to be worth around USD 533.9 Billion by 2032 from USD 193 Billion in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 11% during the forecast period from 2022 to 2032.
• Every 39 seconds there's an attack by hackers.
• Healthcare is still the most targeted victim of ransomware attacks.
• 92% of malware was distributed via email.
• 4.1 million websites are infected by malware at any moment.
• 49 days is the standard amount of time needed to spot a ransomware infection.
• A total of $29M was snatched from the fintech firm by hackers.
• 97% of security breaches are caused by WordPress plugins.
• A total of $3 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen during hacks that have been ongoing to this day.
• 66% of CIOs have said they intend to increase their investment in cybersecurity.
• The statistics on cybersecurity for remote work indicate that 74% of IT experts believe that it is an extreme risk to cybersecurity.

(Source: Tripwire)

Between the second and third quarters of 2025, the number of records exposed in data breaches in the United States saw a decrease. In the most recent measured period, over **** million records were reported as leaked.

Some industries are affected by cyber attacks more than others. These next cybersecurity statistics detail specifically who is affected by cyber-attacks and why they are.

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey, (CSBS) is run to understand organisations' approaches and attitudes to cyber security, and to understand their experience of cyber security breaches.. The aim of the survey is to support the Government by providing evidence that can inform policies which help to make Britain a safer place to do business online.

These surveys have been conducted annually since 2016 to understand the views of UK organisations on cyber security. Data are collected on topics including online use; attitudes of organisations to cyber security and awareness of Government initiatives; approaches to cyber security (including investment and processes); incidences and impact of a cyber security breach or attack; and how breaches are dealt with by the organisation. This information helps to inform Government policy towards organisations, including how best to target key messages to businesses and charities so that they are cyber secure (and so that the UK is the safest place in the world to do business online). The study is funded by the DCMS as part of the government's £2.6 billion National Cyber Strategy 2022 to protect and promote the UK in cyber space.

The underlying data are useful for researchers to better understand the response across a range of organisations and for wider comparability over time. The survey originally only covered businesses but was expanded to include charities from the 2018 survey onwards. From 2020, the survey includes a sample of education institutions (primary and secondary schools, further and higher education). Please note that the UK Data Service only holds datasets on each specific year from 2018 onwards.

Cyber Security Breaches Survey: Combined Dataset, 2016-2022 includes data from 2016 to 2022. This is cross-sectional data only and not all variables are included in all years. For longitudinal data, please access the Cyber Security Longitudinal Survey: Wave 1, 2021 (available from the UK Data Archive under SN 8969) and onwards.

Further information and additional publications can be found on the GOV.UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey webpage.