US 2020 Less Data Breaches but More Expensive

United States Reported Less Data Breaches in 2020 but with much more Expensive Successful Hacker Attacks

According to the annual report of the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), 1,108 cyber incidents were reported in 2020 and the number casualties from these incidents was close to 301 million people, a drop of 66% over the previous year.

The social engineering technique of impersonation also helped attackers reap massive profits:

The volume of business fraud and hacking by corporate e-mail systems (BECs) reported to the FBI in 2020 was US$ 1.8 Billion – a figure that reflects half of all cyber damage in monetary terms.

“The trend away from mass data breaches and toward more precise and sophisticated cyberattacks doesn’t mean businesses can relax. Just the opposite. They need to learn whole new ways of protecting their data.”

– James E. Lee, ITRC COO

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