The index is a global database of public data breaches and measures their severity based on multiple dimensions, including the number of records compromised, the type of data, the source of the breach, how the data was used, and whether or not the data was encrypted.
Compared to the same period in 2017, the number of lost, stolen or compromised records increased by 133%, though the total number of breaches slightly decreased over the same period, signalling an increase in the severity of each incident.
A total of six social media breaches, including the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook incident, accounted for over 56% of total records compromised. Of the 945 data breaches, 189 (20% of all breaches) had an unknown or unaccounted number of compromised data records.
During the first six months of 2018, more than 25 million records were compromised or exposed every day, or 291 records every second, including medical, credit card and/or financial data or personally identifiable information.
As the primary sources of data breaches, malicious outsiders and accidental loss of records were cited by the study.
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