Financial Services, Healthcare and Education Remain Top Data Breach Targets

Healthcare, financial services and higher education sectors are particularly vulnerable to data breaches, according to a new report from Beazley, a provider of data breach response insurance.

According to the company’s Beazley Breach Insights 2016, the specialized Beazley Breach Response (BBR) Services unit responded to 60% more data breaches in 2015 compared with 2014, with a concentration of incidents in the healthcare, financial services and higher education.

Breaches caused by either hacking or malware nearly doubled in relative frequency over the past year. In 2015, 32% of all incidents were caused by hacking or malware compared with 18% in 2014. Unintended disclosure of records, such as a misdirected email, accounted for 24% of all breaches in 2015, down from 32% in 2014.

The loss of non-electronic physical records accounted for 16% of all breaches in 2015, which is unchanged from 2014. And the proportion of breaches involving third-party vendors more than tripled over the same period, rising from six percent of breaches in 2014 to 18% of breaches in 2015.

Beazley’s data breach statistics are based on 777 incidents in 2014 and 1,249 in 2015.

“We saw a significant rise in incidents caused by hacking or malware in the past year,” said Katherine Keefe, global head of BBR Services. “This was especially noticeable in healthcare, where the percentage of data breaches caused by hacking or malware more than doubled.”

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