Government data breaches on the decline
Are government agencies starting to secure their servers and laptops more effectively than their organizational brethren? Each year, the Open Security Foundation publishes a compendium of publicly disclosed — or leaked — organizational data breaches that happened during the previous past year. Even as the total number of breaches increased from 2007 to 2008, the number reported by government agencies has decreased during the past three years.
|
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
|
Total worldwide incidents of
reported data loss: |
470 |
419 |
551 |
|
Total incidents attributed to
government agencies: |
113 |
103 |
94 |
To crunch the numbers yourself, go to the Open Security Foundation's Reports section, at datalossdb.org/reports.
About the Author
Joab Jackson is the senior technology editor for Government Computer News.