Despite the increase in breached accounts globally, there was a positive trend noted in India, with a 56 per cent decrease in breach rates compared to 2022.
India has experienced significant shifts in its ranking regarding data breaches over the past couple of years. According to a recent analysis conducted by Surfshark, in 2022, India was placed 7th on the list of countries with the most breached accounts, with a total of 12.3 million accounts compromised. However, in 2023, India climbed to the 5th position, with 5.3 million leaked accounts.
Globally, there were a staggering 299.8 million breached accounts in 2023. The United States topped the list with almost 100 million breached accounts, marking a significant increase from the previous year. Russia followed in second place, while France, Spain, and India rounded out the top five.
Despite the increase in breached accounts globally, there was a positive trend noted in India, with a 56 per cent decrease in breach rates compared to 2022. This contrasts with the global trend, which saw an 18 per cent decrease overall.
Europe experienced a decrease in data breaches from 160 million in 2022 to 116.6 million in 2023. However, North America saw a substantial increase, with breaches growing by 193 per cent compared to the previous year, accounting for 34% of all breaches.
In terms of specific breaches, LinkedIn recorded one of the largest instances of personal data being exposed, with almost 11.5 million emails leaked due to publicly available information scraping. Other major breaches occurred on platforms such as Duolingo and chess.com, affecting millions of users.
Agneska Sablovskaja, Lead Researcher at Surfshark, highlighted the ongoing concern surrounding data breaches, emphasizing the risk they pose to users in terms of social engineering and identity theft attacks. Scammers often utilise breached data to target individuals with fraudulent emails or requests for personal information.
The analysis conducted by Surfshark was based on data aggregated from 29,000 publicly available databases, providing insights into the global landscape of data breaches and their implications for users worldwide.