You may be at risk of identity fraud, according to a recent report from Symantec. The cyber security research firm says nearly 1.1 billion identities were exposed by cyber criminals in hacks across the globe in 2016.
Symantec says that number is close to double in comparison to 2015, despite the number of data breaches declining from 1,211 that year to 1,209 last year.
According to the report, most of the breaches were reported within the US, sitting at 1,023, with India ranking fifth in the world with a total of eight incidents. It also points out that cyber criminals are adapting to newer methods of malware dispersal, with social media being the new target. Additionally, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones, phone malware is becoming more common than its PC counterpart.
However, it¡¯s possible that the number of incidents reported in the US is high, owing to rigid legal requirements demanding companies report data breaches of any kind, the report adds.
¡°Data breaches are often under-reported in territories where there are no legal requirements in place,¡± says Tarun Kaura, Symantec Director (Solution Product Management) Asia Pacific and Japan. However, Symantec says the size and scale of cyber attacks in general are on the rise.
In 2015, there were 13 major hacking incidents that resulted in over 10 million identities exposed. In 2016, 15 incidents crossed the 10 million accounts threshold. There was even a 36 percent increase in global ransomware threats in 2016, where hackers lock down computer systems and demand to paid to release access again.
Even emails are more unsafe than ever; Symantec found that one in every 131 emails contained malware as an attachment or linked to malware - the highest rate in five years.