The State of US Data Breaches – 2014 [Infographic]

2015 is a huge year for Cybersecurity.

Keeping your business safe is now more important than ever, as 2014 was publicly declared “The Year of the Breach”. This is a good chance to reflect and have a clean overview on what happened over the past year to motivate you to prepare for 2015.

27001 Academy, one the largest online learning center where you can get training to implement the international standard for information security management, ISO 27001, has created an infographic showing what happened during the year in cybersecurity incidents.

2014 Data Breaches in the United States Infographic – created by 27001 Academy

Despite the sharp increase of 27.5% in data breach cases in 2014, the number of records that were compromised has decreased in 2014 with 7%. Even if this brings a small victory, the cybersecurity war is far from being over!

January has been the riskiest month in terms of cyber-attacks, with more than 100 incidents. At an industry level, the most affected sector was the Medical/Healthcare with over 300 incidents.

What’s the most common cause of data breaches?

Surprisingly, many businesses are not aware that 59% of the data breaches take place because of human error, and not malicious hackers that we are used to throw blame at.

The biggest mistake companies make is the intense focus on buying new expensive tech in order to protect their data, without making sure their employees have passed a basic security training. These 8 security practices will help you establish a valid security awareness program for your employees.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the concept of cybersecurity is taken for granted. Most companies believe that cyber threats are not something they should be concerned about or something they should pay closer attention to.

Being a small business doesn’t mean you’re safe from security incidents. No matter what the size of your business is and no matter the sector you’re in, your company is exposed to the risk of a possible cyber-attack.

The State of US Data Breaches – 2014 [Infographic]