- A staggering 57.8 billion personal data points have been exposed to breaches since 2004.
- Passwords are the most leaked type of data, accounting for more than 30% of all exposed information.
- The United States is the most affected country, accounting for nearly 19 billion of the leaked data.
A sobering new study from cybersecurity company Surfshark has laid bare the true magnitude of the data breach epidemic, revealing that a mind-boggling phenomenon 57.8 billion Since 2004, individual personal data has been leaked online.
This vast trove of information, compiled from leaks over the past two decades, is now accessible to malicious actors. Researchers warn that this data is being used to create detailed “digital doppelgängängers” of individuals, combining information from multiple breaches to create comprehensive profiles that can be used for sophisticated fraud, identity theft and targeted attacks. The report analyzed data from 160 countries and paints a grim picture of our collective digital vulnerability.
The study clarifies that a single “leaked account” (such as an email address) can be linked to multiple “data points,” which are individual pieces of information exposed alongside it.
On average, each breached account was compromised with 2.8 additional data points, demonstrating that breaches rarely expose just one type of information. The consequences of this aggregated data are much more serious than those of a single compromised password.
The United States is a hotspot for exposed data
While data breaches are a global phenomenon, Surfshark’s report highlights that the United States is by far the most affected nation.
Since 2004, nearly 4.5 billion user accounts have been compromised in the US, linked to a staggering 19 billion individual data points. This figure means that the United States alone accounts for approximately one-third of all leaked data points analyzed in the study.
The report notes that the United States is the only country to rank in the top five in all nine data categories analyzed, including personal information, financial data, location data and social media details.
This dominance is attributed to the country’s large, highly digitalized population and its role as home to many of the world’s largest technology companies, making its citizens a high-value and often targeted group.
Russia was identified as the leader in password leaks, specifically, while other countries such as Israel led in exposing physical characteristics and Lithuania led in exposing vehicle data. However, no other nation demonstrated the same breadth of exposure as the United States, where hackers often possess broader knowledge of an individual’s real global identity than their digital identity.
They are no longer just passwords
As expected, passwords are the most frequently exposed category, representing 30.4% of all leaks. This category includes not only the passwords themselves, but also password hints and security questions.
The actual “password” field alone has been leaked 10.4 billion times, more than the entire world’s population. This is a stark reminder of the dangers of reusing passwords across multiple services.
However, the investigation goes deeper and reveals the alarming variety of information that is stolen. The second most common category is “personal information” (28.8%), which includes full names, Social Security numbers, and phone numbers. Third is “location” (22.9%), which ranges from physical addresses to IP-based locations.
Perhaps most disturbing, the study found millions of leaks containing immutable personal attributes. The “Physical Features” category, although representing only 0.06% of the total, translates into 28.8 million individual data points.
This includes information such as a person’s height, weight, shoe size, and even eye color, which adds a chilling layer of physical reality to the “digital doppelgänger” concept and makes phishing attempts much more convincing.
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