The number of reported data compromises in the US in 2023 increased by 78% compared to 2022, reaching 3205, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s (ITRC) latest report.
The number of victims of these data breaches reached 353,027,892. While this is still a staggering number, it represents a 16% decrease compared with 2022.
The ITRC said the general trend of the number of victims dropping each year is because organized identity criminals now focus on specific information and identity-related fraud and scams rather than mass attacks.
Overall, the ITRC’s 2023 Annual Data Breach Report found:
- Nearly 11% of all publicly traded companies were compromised in 2023.
- Publicly traded companies withheld information about an attack in 47% of notices compared to 46% of other organizations.
- Healthcare, Financial Services and Transportation reported more than double the number of compromises compared to 2022. While Healthcare led all industries in terms of the number of reported compromises in each of the past five years, Utilities companies led in the estimated number of victims in 2023.
- Supply chain attacks continue to impact more organizations and victims. The number of organizations impacted has surged by more than 2600 percentage points since 2018. The estimated number of victims has also risen by 1400 percentage points.
In a letter from ITRC’s CEO, Eva Valasquez, published in the report, she said: “The sheer scale of the 2023 data compromises is overwhelming. Just the increase from the past record high to 2023’s number is larger than the annual number of events from 2005 until 2020 (except for 2017).”
The majority of data compromises were linked to cyber-attacks. The report found that phishing-related and ransomware attacks were down slightly, while malware and Zero Day attacks jumped significantly compared to previous years.
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