Data breaches can happen to anyone, anywhere at any time. But where do data breaches tend to occur the most?
At Next DLP, we've done the research and created a visualized breakdown of the world's largest data breaches by country and by state, throughout the United States and throughout human history.
Learn more about the causes of data loss, industries most impacted, and information destroyed through antiquity in the visual narrative below.
It's startling to know that 64% of all data losses occur in the United States. And in 2022 alone, more than 15 million data records were stolen (through November).
When it comes to data breaches the US specifically, here are a list of top 5 data losses for each state (in order or magnitude):
California
Oregon
Maryland
Georgia
Virginia
Here's a complete list of data losses for each state.
What are the primary causes of data loss? Human error is the single biggest culprit when it comes to data loss, from human error to inexperience.
The other two major causes are malware attacks and other unexpected events.
From 2021 to 2022, a record 5,212 global businesses experienced confirmed data loss.
Which industries have been impacted the most by data breaches?
They range from financial services to healthcare, with hackers and spammers actively targeting the transportation industry as well.
When it comes to human history, it's impossible to quantify how much data has been lost throughout our past.
But we've done extensive research and pulled together some of the largest data losses ever to impact the world.
In conclusion, data loss is a global and historical certainty. The key is to make sure you’re protected with an airtight data loss prevention solution.
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As of 2022, 15+ million global data records have been exposed, leaked, or lost
Data Loss Affects Every Country
Total data records lost by continent from 2013 to 2020
North America
United States: 6,219,819,956
Canada: 91,830,959
Mexico: 98,252,295
South America
Brazil: 285,373
Chile: 308,189
Europe
United Kingdom: 140,139,193
France: 100,099,535
Netherlands: 1,927,479
Asia
China: 350,752,955
Japan: 114,769,575
India: 394,307,531
Africa
South Africa: 106,654,166
Kenya: 134,000
Australia
Australia: 50,342,722
New Zealand: 1,686,928
Nearly two thirds (64%) of all global data losses have occurred in the United States:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1307426/number-of-data-breaches-worldwide
https://www.varonis.com/blog/the-world-in-data-breaches
Alabama - 5,759,952 records
Alaska - 2,255,560 records
Arizona - 10,905,610 records
Arkansas - 1,568,464 records
California - 5,604,164,335 records
Colorado - 7,372,814 records
Connecticut - 7,511,586 records
Delaware - 636,171 records
Wyoming - 103,063 records
Florida - 355,660,019 records
Georgia - 355,331,875 records
Hawaii - 682,982 records
Idaho - 1,286,990 records
Illinois - 21,582,351 records
Indiana - 110,351,941 records
Iowa - 2,484,067 records
Kansas - 6,387,245 records
Kentucky - 3,623,799 records
Louisiana - 749,802 records
Maine - 4,378,565 records
Maryland - 388,461,514 records
Massachusetts - 7,302,719 records
Michigan - 10,851,171 records
Minnesota - 45,470,352 records
Mississippi - 370,565 records
Missouri - 4,589,556 records
Montana - 1,637,832 records
Nebraska - 1,507,583 records
Nevada - 25,752,176 records
New Hampshire - 598,140 records
New Jersey - 150,028,157 records
New Mexico - 519,795 records
New York - 295,801,833 records
North Carolina - 27,406,656 records
North Dakota - 440,698 records
Ohio - 6,278,403 records
Oklahoma - 7,347,113 records
Oregon - 1,380,348,717
Pennsylvania - 17,614,927 records
Rhode Island - 206,955 records
South Carolina - 7,656,310 records
South Dakota - 45,179 records
Tennessee - 9,612,731 records
Texas - 294,847,285 records
Utah - 4,546,054 records
Vermont - 245,441 records
Virginia - 311,628,882 records
Washington - 81,289,253 records
West Virginia - 108,432 records
Wisconsin - 8,173,146 records
https://www.idtheftcenter.org/data-breaches/
Human error
Accidental deletion
Lack of training
Mis-clicks
Malware
Phishing
Spoofing
Ransomware
Unexpected events
Hardware failure
Software glitches
Natural disasters
[Call Out: Countries aren’t the only entities affected by data loss — 45% of retailers have reported the increased size, severity, and scope of cyberattacks against their data]
https://opendental.blog/natural-disasters-effect-critical-data/
https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/retail-data-threat-report
5,212 global businesses experienced confirmed data loss between 2021 and 2022
Industries included:
Healthcare: 571 incidents
USA: An employee at Anthem Health Insurance forwarded 18,500 members records’ to a third-party vendor (2017)
Finance: 690 incidents
Ukraine: 100 GB of data were exfiltrated from a loan services company (2018)
Transportation: 137 incidents
UK: British Airways suffered data exfiltration affecting 400,000 customers (2020)
Public administration: 537 incidents
AUS: The South Australian government saw the exfiltration of government employee data (2021)
Manufacturing: 338 incidents
Japan: Toyota lost 300,000 customer emails to hackers (2022)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/329608/security-incidents-confirmed-data-loss-industry-size/
https://www.scmagazine.com/news/breach/anthem-reports-18500-members-involved-in-new-data-breach
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54568784.
https://tech.co/news/data-breaches-2022-so-far
An immeasurable amount of data has been destroyed throughout history
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal
600 BC, Nineveh
12,000 tablets affected in the sacking of Nineveh
Estimated data loss: 13.71 GB
The Library of Alexandria
48 BC, Alexandria
500,000 scrolls lost in a fire during Caesar’s civil war
Estimated data loss: 571.42 GB
The Maya Religious Codices
1562 AD, Mesoamerica
20,040 religious codices destroyed by Spanish conquistadors
Estimated data loss: 22.990 GB
https://www.globaldatavault.com/blog/information-destruction-history/
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