Mary-Louise Hoffman
Gemalto has released an index showing the global public sector accounted for about 43 percent of data losses due to security breaches that occurred last year.
The company said Tuesday its Breach Level Index report indicates the volume of government records that were compromised globally was up 476 percent in 2015 from the previous year.
Seventy-seven percent of all breaches last year happened in North America, about 12 percent occurred in Europe and nearly 8 percent transpired in Asia-Pacific, the report states.
Gemalto found that the healthcare industry accounted for 23 percent of the total data exposures over tha past year.
The volume of data stolen from the retail sector declined by 93 percent in 2015 while the amount of stolen records in the financial services sector dropped 99 percent, the online security firm noted.
Malicious outsiders were responsible for approximately 58 percent of global data breaches last year and state-sponsored actors caused 2 percent of overall incidents.
Jason Hart, chief technology officer and vice president of data protection at Gemalto, said the company created the index to serve as a guide for organizations in their internal risk assessment, planning and mitigation efforts.
