A new report warns against relegating cybersecurity to the bottom of the to-do list.
More data records have been compromised in 2020 alone than in the past 15 years combined, in what is described as a mounting “data breach crisis” in the latest study from analysis firm Canalys.
Over the past 12 months, 31 billion data records have been compromised, found Canalys. This is up 171% from the previous year, and constitutes well over half of the 55 billion data records that have been compromised in total since 2005.
Cases of ransomware – a specific type of attack that encrypts servers and data to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid – have been on the rise, with the number of reported incidents up 60% compared to 2019.
“Prioritize cybersecurity and invest in broadening protection, detection and response measures or face disaster,” said Canalys chief analyst Matthew Ball.