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.

During the third quarter of 2024, data breaches exposed more than *** million records worldwide. Since the first quarter of 2020, the highest number of data records were exposed in the first quarter of ***, more than *** 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 *** 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Introduction

Data Breach Statistics: A data breach, also called data leakage, happens when personal information is shared or lost without permission. It includes things like names, addresses, passwords, credit card numbers, or health records. Such breaches can occur if someone inside a company shares it by mistake or on purpose, if an unprotected device is lost or stolen, if hackers break into systems using weak points, or if people are tricked through phishing to give away private data. The common causes of data breaches are human error, lost or stolen devices, cyberattacks, phishing attacks, and insider threats.

This article includes several statistical analyses taken from different sources that include breach types, global incidents of data breaches, industry-wide data breaches, regional impacts, causes, breach size, impacts, breach detection, consumer awareness, and future analysis.

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

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

Introduction

Data Breach Statistics: In the year 2024, data breaches pose a great risk all over the world, and criminals tend to use more advanced methods, making the attacks more frequent and wider. All types of organizations, regardless of their size and in all industries, have been victims of data breaches, often leading to loss of money and facing legal actions as well as damage to their names.

This paper looks at the current data breach statistics, looking into some important figures, costs, and trends to expect in the year 2024.

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

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.

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.

Pay attention to the following cybersecurity statistics to learn how to protect yourself from attacks.

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.

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 is a collection of various statistics that have been derived from these notices, and is the source of data used to produce the AGO’s Annual Data Breach Report.

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.

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.