Data at Risk

Breaches Tick Up in 2017

By Mike Sederholm on Jun 21, 2018 in Technology

A report published by the Identity Theft Resource Center and CyberScout found there were 1,579 data breaches tracked in 2017. That figure represents a 45% rise over 2016, and an all-time high number of such events.

More than half of the breaches (870) listed by the report were associated with the business sector. Other categories reported by ITRC and CyberScout include 374 breaches in the healthcare sector and 134 breaches in the banking/credit/financial sector.

“Each year we see an upward trend in number of data breaches cited in these reports. These troubling statistics are a good reminder for property managers to take proactive steps to avoid the potential catastrophe of a data breach,” said Jay Shobe, Yardi vice president of cloud services.

According to the report, the most common breaches occurring in 2017 involved hacking of user accounts to gain access to protected data. Hacking typically involves phishing scams, where scammers fool users into entering a username and password into a forged online form, and ransomware which can infect a computer when a user clicks on a nefarious email attachment. In the case of ransomware, access to data can be locked until a payment is made.

On a positive note, the study found that the rise in breaches isn’t purely due to increased illicit activities. An increased willingness of organizations to make breaches public knowledge, as opposed to keeping them quiet and privately handled, also boosted the number of 2017.

“Companies can avoid a lot of negative attention by responding to data breaches with transparency, as opposed to covering up attempts to steal their clients’ data. When individuals know their data is compromised they can take proactive steps to mitigate immediate and long-term impacts of a breach,” said Shobe.

The Security of the Yardi Cloud

Within the Yardi cloud, client data resides behind multiple layers of firewalls and intrusion prevention systems. Strong password policies and SSO integration ensure that users are authenticated in real time, and role-based application security verifies users can only access data they are authorized to see. In addition, multiple encryption layers guarantee that data remains protected if a breach were to occur.

Yardi constantly backs up and replicates all data to an off-site center to ensure business continuity. Yardi partners with world-class data centers providers, and exclusively hosts in Tier 3 co-location spaces to establish full redundancy of all components, including power, internet connectivity and more.

Yardi was named to the Forbes Cloud 100 list of the world’s best cloud companies in 2016 and 2017. The Forbes 2017 Cloud 100 was selected by a panel of judges representing leading public cloud companies, using qualitative and quantitative data submitted by nominees, along with third-party data sources.

Additional Findings

Highlights of the ITRC and CyberScout report include the following statistics:

• The number of credit card numbers exposed in 2017 totaled 14,207,346, which was up 88 percent since 2016.
• More than eight times the number of Social Security numbers were exposed in 2017 than in 2016.
• The medical/healthcare sector, educational sector and government/military sectors all reflected decreases in the percentage of data breaches from 2016 figures.
• The business sector was hit the hardest by hacking, with nearly 40 percent of the breached entities identifying this type of attack as the cause for the breach.