California Data Breach Report

By Randall Friedland

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris yesterday released the second annual California Data Breach Report.   The report provided statistics and analysis related to data breaches that were reported to the Attorney General’s office in 2013.  The report also outlined suggested best practices and provided recommendations on ways to improve data security.

Statistics

The report documented a clear upward trend in both the number of data breaches and those affected by such breaches.  For instance, in 2013, there were 167 data breaches reported in California, which is an increase of over 28 percent from the 131 data breaches reported in 2012.  Additionally, the records containing personal information of over 18.5 million California residents were compromised in 2013—a 600 percent increase from the previous year.  Even if the two largest data breaches involving retailers were excluded from this calculation, California still experienced a 35 percent increase in the number of records affected by data breaches. 
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