NEW DELHI: A whopping 3.24 million records were stolen, lost or exposed in India in 2017 - marking a 783 per cent increase in compromised records from 2016, says a study by digital security firm Gemalto.
Globally, publicly disclosed breaches surpassed more than two billion compromised data records in 2017, according to the findings released this week.
Over the past five years, nearly 10 billion records have been lost, stolen or exposed as per the Gemalto "Breach Level Index" report that began tracking data breaches in 2013.
Of the 29 data breach incidents in India in 2017, identity theft represented the leading type of data breach, accounting for 58 per cent of all data breaches, revealed the report.
Malicious outsiders remained the number one cybersecurity threat last year at 52 per cent of all breach incidents.
Companies in the retail, government and financial services sectors were the primary targets for breaches last year.
"Companies can mitigate the risks surrounding a breach through a 'security by design' approach, building in security protocols and architecture at the beginning," said Jason Hart, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Data Protection at Gemalto.
The "Breach Level Index" serves as a global database that tracks and analyses data breaches, the type of data compromised and how it was accessed, lost or stolen.