Comparitech: “The US government suffered 443 data breaches since 2014, with 2018 being the worst year so far, according to a new study by Comparitech. Data breaches are often associated with the private sector—hackers break into databases owned by businesses to steal user data and other valuable information. But the government is also a frequent target of breaches, often compromising much more sensitive data. Comparitech analyzed the last four years of US government breaches. These are not only limited to database breaches, but also other electronic and even paper breaches. These can range from stolen laptops and hard drives to document mailing errors…” Here are the study’s key findings:

• Since 2014 there have been 443 data government/military breaches involving 168,962,628 records
• 2018 was the worst year for data breaches with 100 occurring which involved 81,505,426 records
• 2014 was also a high year for data breaches (90 in total) but these involved far fewer records—9,419,799
• Electronic breaches by far outweigh data breaches. However, in 2014, a third of all breaches were paper data breaches…”