Privacy Rights Clearinghouse - See how pervasive cyber attacks really are.

Lately, it seems like every day there is a new disclosure by a well-known company who has had their network compromised – and client data stolen. Just yesterday, the WSJ had an article about ADP being the latest victim. Add their name to Citigroup, Sony, RSA, the CIA and Lockheed Martin and you get the sense that this is just the tip of the iceberg. How many other successful exploits have taken place that were not publicized or occurred below the radar?

I found an interesting site that is worth taking looking at: Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Specifically, http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach/new provides a great menu-based approach to seeing just how many exploits have actually taken place and you can slice and dice the information in a variety of ways:

Selecting all the boxes resulted in a 531-page report that looks like this:

As you can see, malicious attacks are pervasive and their frequency, sophistication and success just keeps growing as businesses of all sizes try to defend their digital assets.

It all starts with governance, best practices, awareness and training. If businesses would focus on these areas, fully 80% of what the bad guys are doing could be stopped. The time is now.