InfoWatch Research Center presents its first bi-annual report on Data Leaks in the Financial Services Sector: January – June 2012. This report provides an overall view of the general trends of data leakage in the financial services sector and some conclusions which provide a basis for predicting the evolution of data leakage in general based on these trends.
This report will provide a general view of the data leakage landscape in the financial service sector. Some of the conclusions will help not only banks, but all enterprises evaluate their information management and security architecture.
Quick Facts Financial service providers lost over 2 billion USD in direct losses during the first half of 2012. Over 2 million records have been compromised, containing both financial and personal data. Up to 60% of the leaks studied affected financial information. Despite a drop in leaks affecting enterprises relative to the overall number of data leaks, the percentage of breaches in the financial services industry remains stable – 5-7%. The financial services industry suffers more from malicious breaches than other segments – 37% and 20% respectively. Interestingly enough, 41.7% of the leaks in the financial services segment occur via backup copies of data versus email, the Internet and portable data devices.