Data breaches slightly decline in first half of 2022

Data breaches reported by organizations totaled 1,980 during the first six months of 2022, which is nearly 15% lower than the same time last year, according to TechRepublic. Meanwhile, breach-exposed records dropped from 27.3 billion in the first half of 2021 to 1.4 billion in the first half of 2022, which was the lowest since 2015, a Flashpoint report showed. Persistent slow breach disclosure pacing has been the main factor behind the decline in data breach prevalence but overall incidence is poised to match or exceed last year's figure as more breaches get reported, noted Flashpoint Vice President of Structured Intelligence Inga Goddijn. Goddijn also noted that reduced occurrence of open misconfigured services resulted in the decline in exposed records. The report also showed that hacking was the primary cause of most breaches during the first half of 2022. Most breaches during the same period have been targeted at compromising names and Social Security number, the study found.