50 Largest Data Breaches by Sector

Posted June 14, 2022

In today’s work-from-anywhere technology-reliant environment, data breaches have become an unfortunate reality and cost of doing business in today’s world. Social engineering attacks, ransomware, and advanced persistent threats are all part of this new reality. Defending against attacks requires awareness, response plans, and advanced defenses.

A data breach is an incident where protect information is copied, stolen, or exposed to an unauthorized person. The largest data breach in history was the LinkedIn breach of 2021 in which 700 million records were stolen. The visual below from Visual Capitalist highlights the top 50 known data breaches from 2004-2021.

The web sector was the most impacted with 9.9bn records compromised. The tech and finance sectors were also severely impacted losing 1.6bn and 2.0bn records respectively.

Cyber attacks and data breaches are on the rise and will likely continue interfering with commerce as businesses fail to protect themselves and attackers get paid ransom. Every business needs to test its backups and develop a plan for prioritizing the restoration of critical systems and rebuilding its network. In some cases, a breach response plan may include driving to an off-site backup location and physically grabbing a backup. When backups are large, shipping them can become the fastest data transfer rate. If you aren’t confident in your backup plan and breach response plan, contact us so you aren’t the next victim funding the attacks.

Kyle Vinar

Kyle Vinar is Partner / President of Verus Corporation. He oversees all business operations and coaches Verus teams to continually improve on their solutions from client experience to product development and overall solution implementation. He works with all Verus resources to increase efficiencies and excellence in every aspect of their organizational roles. Kyle believes that people are the last real competitive edge that a company can have and constructing a rich culture is a vital step in running a world-class organization. Therefore he strives to create a culture within Verus that allows everyone to show up authentically and grow both personally and professionally, which in turn allows Verus Corp team members to provide clients with top-of-the-line service. Kyle helps balance strategy, capacity, and culture in such a way that has allowed Verus Corp to achieve exponential growth since he joined the company in 2013. One of Kyle’s greatest professional achievements has been in helping lay the foundation upon which Verus Corporation could be named the 2nd Best Place to Work by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Kyle holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from St. Cloud State University. He lives in Champlin with his wife and 3 children. He has enjoyed volunteering as a soccer coach for over 6 years and was the former Director of Coaching for Rebels Soccer Club. If Kyle isn’t on the sidelines of one of his children’s soccer games or in the audience of his eldest’s musicals, he can often be found cruising scenic routes on his Harley, in a deer stand, or on the golf course.