The United States maintained its dubious top spot in data breaches as cybersecurity company Surfshark released its Q2 statistics last week.
According to Surfshark, 110.8 million accounts were breached in the quarter. The USA (49.8M) accounts for nearly half of those breaches, with Russia (15.3M), Spain (3.7M), France (3.4M) and Turkey (2.8M) rounding out the top five. Spots six through 10 go to Australia, India, Italy, the United Kingdom and Brazil.
The countries with the highest breach density (number of leaked accounts per 1,000 residents) are the United States (147), Russia (106), Spain (78), Finland (78), Australia (72), Sweden (70), France (53), South Sudan (35), Turkey (32) and Denmark (29).
There was a 2.6 times increase in breached users worldwide compared to Q1 2023.
North America was the most affected region by data breaches, followed by Europe and Asia. The frequency in North America surged ninefold, with 97% of the activity happening in the United States. Europe was the second leakiest region, with close to 25% of all breaches. Its hit rate grew by 56% over the quarter.
The total number of breaches increased by 2.6 times over the three months. It equates to 14 leaked accounts every second and 855 every minute. Asia saw a 46% quarterly decrease, dropping from 11 million to 5.8 million
“According to the most recent Surfshark’s global data breach statistics, leaked accounts surged almost threefold in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the previous quarter,” said Agneska Sablovskaja, lead researcher at Surfshark. “Such alarming increase in data breaches highlights that the current data protection measures are not sufficient, and sensitive information remains at risk as cybercriminals continue to access it in ever higher numbers.”
Asian accounts represented 5% of activity. All other regions comprised less than 5% of the quarter’s total, with almost 19% remaining unknown. Out of all regions, Asia saw the greatest quarter-over-quarter decrease — 46%, bringing its total of almost 11M leaked accounts in Q1 2023 down to 5.8M in Q2 2023.