[Dataloss] US data breaches booming in '08

[security curmudgeon]

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From: InfoSec News <alerts at infosecnews.org>

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/27/itrc_data_breaches_2008_beat_2007/

By Austin Modine
The Register
27th August 2008

The number of personal information leaks reported in the US this year have 
already exceeded the total amount in all of 2007, San Diego-based Identity 
Theft Resource Center said today.

With four months left in 2008, the firm found that 449 US businesses and 
government agencies have thus far reported lost or stolen customer and 
employee data.

But the agency reckons the actual number is likely higher, due to 
under-reporting and data loss that affects multiple businesses being 
reported as a single event. All told, ITRC said its 2008 list represents 
compromised records of more than 22 million individuals — although it 
calls that number "grossly incomplete" because in about 40 per cent of 
events the number of records exposed is not reported or fully disclosed.

Yet ITRC founder Linda Foley attributes part of the growth to companies 
becoming more open to reporting data loss and the group's access to state 
notification lists.

[...]