Australia still ranks high when it comes to data breaches

Australia earned the unenvious title of the most data-breached country in the world late last year. However, the nation seems to have – somewhat happily – lost that title.

According to new research from VPN company Surfshark, Australia now ranks sixth in the world for the second quarter of 2023 when it comes to being hacked.

The top spot now belongs to America, with 49,823,245 account breaches, followed by Russia in a distant second with over 15 million breaches, and then Spain, France, and Turkey.

India, Italy, the UK, and Brazil make up the rest of the top 10.

============

Nearly 2 million Australian accounts were breached this quarter. This equates to roughly 15 user accounts breached every minute between April and June. Australia also ranks fifth when it comes to the density of breaches, with 72 accounts affected for 1,000 residents.

Globally, 110.8 million accounts were breached in the same period. That’s an increase of nearly three times more than the previous quarter, equating to 855 accounts breached every minute, compared to 334 previously.

“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, in a statement.

“Such [an] alarming increase in data breaches highlights that the current data protection measures are not sufficient, and sensitive information remains at risk as cyber criminals continue to access it in ever higher numbers.”

David Hollingworth

David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.