“Verizon’’s 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) provides truly global insights into the nature of data breaches that can help organizations of all sizes to better understand the threat and take the necessary steps to protect themselves. The breadth and depth of data represented in this year’s DBIR is unprecedented. It combines the efforts of 19 global organizations: law enforcement agencies, national incident-reporting entities, research institutions, and a number of private security firms — all working to study and combat data breaches. Over the years the number of contributors has grown. Since we started publishing the DBIR in 2008, our partners have contributed data information on more than 2,500 confirmed data breaches — totaling more than a billion compromised records.”