2011 Data Breach Investigations Report

Executive Summary

361 million >> 144 million >> 4 million. Thus goes the tally of total records compromised across the combined caseload of Verizon and the United States Secret Service (USSS) over the last three years. After four years of increasing losses culminating in 2008’s record-setting 361 million, we speculated whether 2009’s drop to 144 million was a fluke or a sign of things to come. 2010’s total of less than four million compromised records seems to suggest it was a sign.But of what? And is it a permanent change in direction or a temporary detour?To help us answer that, we are very glad to have the United States Secret Service (USSS) back with us for the 2011 DBIR.

Additionally, we have the pleasure of welcoming the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) to the team. Through this cooperative effort, we had the privilege—and challenge—of examining about 800 new data compromise incidents since our last report (with 761 of those for 2010). To put that in perspective, the entire Verizon-USSS dataset from 2004 to 2009 numbered just over 900 breaches. We very nearly doubled the size of our dataset in 2010 alone!

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