Identity Theft Data Breaches Doubled in 2009, Says Annual Survey
In yet another sign that 2009 saw the introduction of online identity theft and data breaches as an increasingly common crime, identity theft statistics from an annual survey compared to identity theft statistics from one year earlier.
According to identity theft statistics from the U.S. Cost of a Data Breach survey for 2009 that was conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the number of malicious identity theft attacks and botnets that attacked companies across the country increased from 12 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2009, Cnet.com reported.
"A surprising finding is that malicious or criminal identity theft attacks increased substantially. These identity theft breaches often utilized attacks" said Larry Ponemon, founder and chairman of the Ponemon Institute. "We never experienced this type of data breach in the prior five years. Hence, the nature of data breach incidents may be changing. In addition, these types of attacks are much more expensive for participating companies."
Additionally, the survey statistics also found that the costs associated with identity theft breaches and attacks increased in 2009 for both individuals and companies. The average cost per-record of a data breach was found to have risen slightly from 2008 to 2009 as it increased two dollars to $204. In 2005, on the initial cost of data breach survey conducted by Ponemon, the average cost per-record was only $138. These statistics show an increase in the cost of identity theft breaches since 2005.
The average organizational cost associated with data breaches increased as well, jumping up 2 percent to $6.75 million in 2009.
As for what caused the majority of the identity theft breaches, 42 percent of all cases were initiated by the mistake of a third party contractor or consultant. Forty percent of the identity theft cases were associated with lost or stolen laptops or USB drives, while malicious attacks accounted for only 24 percent of all identity theft breaches, according to statistics.