The number of data breaches in Russia accounts for 3.5M breaches in the first quarter of 2022, leapfrogging the United States of America with an 11 percent surge in the fourth quarter of 2021, a report from CryptoMonday analysis has revealed.
Sharing this in a statement, the CEO of CryptoMonday, Jonathan Merry attributed the surge of data breaches in Russia to the crisis with Ukraine.
“You can’t divorce Russia’s data breaching woes from its incursion into Ukraine. That action has earned it many enemies within the hacker community. These are targeting Russian “assets” in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. A perfect example would be the Anonymous hacker group who’ve announced a hacking campaign against the nation.”
CryptoMonday’s analysis shows that the Russian data violations peaked in March. The country recorded a 136% spike in those breaches from February’s occurrences. That was a fivefold jump from January’s figures, underlining the need for vigilance in our online activities.
Which nations reported the highest number of data breaches?
Though alarming, a surge in the Russian numbers pales in comparison to events elsewhere. Hong Kong, for instance, recorded a 946% jump in those episodes. That upswing saw the country’s load of data leaks hit the 311,000 mark in Q1 2022.
Poland is another nation that recorded a proliferation of data intrusion cases. The country’s Q1 2022 tally of those events rose by 514% from Q4 2021 to stand at 916,000.
South Korea registered the biggest drop in data breaches
It hasn’t been all gloom and doom for the global IT fraternity. Many other nations registered declines in their cases of compromised data. South Korea leads the way here, having reduced its Q4 2021 occurrences by 92%!
Similarly, Brazil cut down its last quarter’s numbers by 80%. Other nations that made big progress in containing data breaches were Spain (70%), Ukraine (67%), Canada (63%), and India (62%). The U.S has been leading in these attacks, reducing them by 47%.