Hackers behind bulk of the 2,644 data breaches in 2012

For the second year running, hacking was the most frequent source of data breaches, according to a new report based on known incidents in 2012.

There were 2,644 data breaches last year or just over twice the number known to have occurred in 2011, according a new report by Open Security Foundation, which runs the international DataLoss database, and security consultancy Risk Based Security.

Hacking was behind 1802 (68.2 percent) of known breaches for the year, which resulted in 22 percent of the 267 million records that were exposed in 2012. Conversely, insiders (malicious, accidental, and unknown) were responsible 19.5 percent of data loss incidents, but had a much bigger impact, and were responsible for 66.7 percent of the year’s exposed records.