In 2023, the number of data compromises in the United States stood at 3,205 cases. Meanwhile, over 353 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. In 2022, healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing were the three industry sectors that recorded most data breaches. The number of healthcare data breaches in the United States has gradually increased within the past few years. In the financial sector, data compromises increased almost twice between 2020 and 2022, while manufacturing saw an increase of more than three times in data compromise incidents. 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.

During the third quarter of 2024, data breaches exposed more than 422 million records worldwide. Since the first quarter of 2020, the highest number of data records were exposed in the first quarter of 202, more than 818 million 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 495 reported data breach incidents with confirmed data loss. The second were financial institutions, with 421 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 4.45 million U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, a leaked data record cost about 165 U.S. dollars. The United States saw the highest average breach cost globally, at 9.48 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.

As of 2024, the mean number of days to identify the data breaches was 194 days, four percent less than in the previous year. The mean time companies needed to contain the breaches in 2024 was 64 days. In comparison, in 2022, it took organizations 207 days to identify and 70 days to address the data breaches.

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 December 2024, 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 January 2025, the most significant data privacy violation fine worldwide was for social media giant Meta. In May 2023, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) of Ireland decided to fine the company with 1.2 billion euros or 1.3 billion U.S. dollars. The Chinese vehicle-for rent company Didi Global ranked second. In July 2022, China's data privacy regulator fined the company 8.026 billion Chinese yuan, or 1.19 billion U.S. dollars. The 2021 Amazon fine issued by Luxembourg's data privacy regulation authorities was 877 million U.S. dollars and was the third-biggest data breach fine as of the measured month. The 2019 fine of 575 million U.S. dollars to Equifax followed. In this incident, because of unpatched vulnerabilities, nearly 150 million people were affected, which caused the American consumer credit reporting agency to pay at least 575 million U.S. dollars.

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.

In 2023, the healthcare industry in the United States remained the most targeted by cyber attacks, resulting in data compromises. Compared to 2022, the number of data compromise incidents in the U.S. healthcare industry increased more than twice. The financial services sector ranked second, with 744 data compromise incidents, representing a significant increase, too.

As of 2024, the average cost of a data breach in the United States amounted to 9.36 million U.S. dollars, down from 9.48 million U.S. dollars in the previous year. The global average cost per data breach was 4.88 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 5.13 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 4.53 million U.S. dollars, while in Germany it stood at 5.31 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 nine million U.S. dollars. Financial institutions ranked second, with an average cost of six million U.S. dollars for a data breach. Detection and escalation was the costliest segment in data breaches worldwide, with 1.63 U.S. dollars on average. The cost for lost business ranked second, while response following a breach came across as the third-costliest segment.

In the first half of 2024, the share of health-related U.S. data breaches caused by hacking was 78 percent, which marked a two percent increase from 2023, reaching its highest rate since 2014.

The statistic shows the number of data breaches in the United States from 2013 to 2019, by industry. In the last measured period, the majority of the 1,473 annual data breaches affected business and medical or healthcare organizations, with 644 and 525 data breaches respectively.

Analysis of ‘Data Breach Notifications Affecting Washington Residents (Personal Information Breakdown)’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/e046c966-f19a-4d3d-aadb-ac5d1a90ff3d on 27 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

• Washington law requires entities impacted by a data breach to notify the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) when more than 500 Washingtonians personal information was compromised as a result of the breach. This dataset breaks out the individual types of breached personal information that were identified in each notice our office received. This data is used to produce the AGO’s Annual Data Breach Report. For additional statistics relating to data breaches, also see the main dataset at: https://data.wa.gov/Consumer-Protection/Data-Breach-Notifications-Affecting-Washington-Res/sb4j-ca4h.

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

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 885 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.

As of February 2024, the global average cost per data breach amounted to 4.88 million U.S. dollars, an increase from 4.45 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.

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.

The Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) Software market is experiencing significant growth as organizations increasingly prioritize the protection of sensitive data amidst a rising tide of cyber threats and compliance regulations. DLP software solutions are designed to detect and prevent data breaches by monitoring, contr

In 2023, around 96.75 million e-mail accounts breached originated from the United States, making it the country with the most significant number of user account exposures in the examined year. Russia ranked second, with over 78 million accounts breached, while the France followed, with approximately 10.5 million breached accounts.