Hackers have stolen the personal information of 110 million Americans in the last year. That massive number is dwarfed by the number of hacked accounts: up to 432 million.That's the best estimate available with the data tracked by the Identity Theft Resource Center and review of corporate disclosures. The exact number of hacked accounts is hard to know because some companies aren't fully transparent about their cyber breaches, like AOL (AOL) and eBay (EBAY). Each record typically includes personal information, such as your name, debit or credit card, email, phone number, birthday, password, security questions and physical address. Even if only basic information about you is stolen, that can easily be paired with stolen credit card data. For example, the first three months of 2014 saw 254 data breaches worldwide, resulting in the theft of 200 million records. That’s a 233 percent increase from the first three months of 2013, according to the Breach Level Index reported by Belcamp, Maryland-based information security company SafeNet Inc.
Cyberattacks are growing so numerous that we're beginning to ignore them.
The most recent numbers make for a impressive list:
70 million Target customers' personal information, plus 40 million credit and debit cards
33 million Adobe user credentials, plus 3.2 million stolen credit and debit cards
4.6 million Snapchat users' account data
3 million payment cards used at Michaels
1.1 million cards from Neiman Marcus
"A significant number" of AOL's 120 million account holders
Potentially all of eBay's 148 million customers' credentials
Why does this keep happening? Two things:
1: We're moving our lives online. Shopping and banking are now pervasive digital endeavors for many people. Stores rely on the Internet to conduct and process all transactions. Your data is everywhere: on your phone, laptop, work PC, website servers and countless retailers' computer networks. Social media attacks masquerade as messages from your friends. Data breaches steal your personal information from companies you trusted.
2: Hacks are getting more sophisticated. Offensive hacking weapons are numerous, and hackers have learned to be quiet while roaming around inside corporate networks for years before setting off any alarms.
The age of small time hackers has given way to large-scale theft with targeted, military precision.
"Now attackers are very focused," said Brendan Hannigan, who leads the security systems division at IBM (IBM). "There are teams of them, and they create malware to attack specific organizations."
It doesn't help that the security of the entire Internet relies on a few underfunded volunteers. Witness problems in the SSLEAY library that led to the Heartbleed bug. Or that so many people use outdated software. That leads to the recent Internet Explorer flaw that allowed attackers to take over your computer.
"It's becoming more acute," said Larry Ponemon, head of the Ponemon Institute. "If you're not a data breach victim, you're not paying attention." The Internet is not a safe place to be.
