A new report by Risk Based Security show that the number of reported data breaches surged by 56.4% in Q1 of 2019 compared to the same quarter last year, while the number of exposed records rose by 28.9%. However, these figures don’t necessarily represent an uptick in actual breaches. Instead, part of the explanation is probably that under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect in May of last year, firms that attempt to keep breaches to themselves can receive massive fines.
The report shows that it takes companies on average 43 days to disclose a breach when the incident was discovered by an external party. Unfortunately, when the targeted organization detected the breach without external assistance reporting occurs much later, after only 74 days.