USA. Rapid7 published the results of an investigation on information leaks in the government sector. For the period of January 1, 2009 through May 31, 2012 there are 268 recorded cases of information leakage, with over 94 million records containing personal information being put at risk.
According to the investigation, the number of recorded cases of information leakage in the government sector rose by 50% between 2009 and 2010, and it increased three-fold from 2010 to 2011. The number of disclosed personal information rose by 168.69% between 2010 and 2011, and by 138.3% between 2011 and May 31, 2012. Unintentional disclosure of confidential information, loss or theft of portable devices, physical loss and hacker attacks are the most common causes of information leakage. Over 80.7 million records containing confidential information are at risk due to loss or theft of mobile devices. The second and third most common causes of information leakage are unintentional disclosure (over 11.7 million records) and hacking (1.1 million records).
Rapid7 investigators noted that between January 1, 2012 and May 31, 2012 the number of hacker attacks exceeded all other causes of information leakage. The greatest number of recorded hacker attacks in the country took place in California (21), Columbia (20) and Texas (16).
