Gemalto revealed that in the first six months of this year a total of 888 data breaches occurred, compromising 246 million records worldwide. Compared to the first half of 2014, data breaches increased by 10% while the number of compromised data records declined by 41% during the first six months of this year. This decline in compromised records can most likely be attributed to that fact that fewer large scale mega breaches have occurred in the retail industry compared to the same period last year. Despite the decrease in the number of compromised records, large data breaches continued to expose massive amounts of personal information and identities. The largest breach in the first half of 2015 – which scored a 10 in terms of severity on the Breach Level Index – was an identity theft attack on Anthem Insurance that exposed 78.8 million records, representing almost a third (32%) of the total data records stolen in the first six months of 2015.
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