With the increased use of computers in business, it's no surprise that malicious actors targeting sensitive enterprise information is also on the rise. Sending and storing personal and financial information is becoming more dangerous, as new research out of New York shows.
A report from the New York State attorney general's office revealed this week that private and public institutions in the state experienced more than 900 data breaches last year. The report was commissioned after the number of digital attacks on organizations from both sectors saw an increase in recent years.
In 2013 alone, company data breaches cost over $1 billion to New York groups in the public and private sectors and exposed the personal and financial records of more than 7 million of the state's residents. The report covered data breaches from 2006 through 2013 and found that incidents of breaches have more than tripled in that time.
"What's truly shocking about this report, beyond the fact that hacking is now the greatest threat to our personal information and costs us billions of dollars, is that many of these breaches could have been prevented," New York attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman said in a statement. "If millions of New Yorkers were exposed, one can only imagine how many have been compromised across the nation."
While New York state requires institutions to report company data breaches if certain criteria are met, the report noted that there may be more unreported breaches that didn't meet disclosure requirements. The state's attorney general noted that businesses of all sizes and in all sectors had experienced breaches but particularly pointed to those in the financial services and healthcare industries.
A better way to store and transfer documents
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