KUALA LUMPUR: The latest study conducted by cybersecurity company Surfshark placed Malaysia as the eleventh most breached country in the second quarter of 2022. The study analysed millions of breached accounts from April through June, 2022, which showed more than 665,200 Malaysians have been breached during this period, recording a growth of 733 per cent in the last quarter.
Surfshark's interactive tool shows how every country in the world is affected by breaches, according to 27,000 leaked databases. The latest monthly update revealed the state of data breaches in the last quarter (Q2'2022), ranking Russia first in the world by leaked accounts (28.8 mil), followed by India (4.4 mil), China (3.4 mil), Brazil (3.2 mil), the United States (2.3 mil), and South Korea (1.8 mil).
East Asia has seen the most spikes in breached users quarter-over-quarter, with Japan growing by 1,442 per cent, China by 1,092 per cent, South Korea by 1,013 per cent and Malaysia by 733 per cent.
"In South-Eastern Asia, every second person, or 64 out of every 100, have been affected by data breaches," said Surfshark data researcher Agneska Sablovskaja in a statement adding that the number of affected people is higher than other counties in the same area.
"However, in Malaysia, this number goes up to 138 per 100 people. Statistically speaking, an average Malaysian has been affected by data breaches at least one time."
The statement said that breaches are rising worldwide, Malaysia included and that since 2004, there have already been a total of 44.2 mil breached accounts in Malaysia.
Global user breaches are two per cent higher this quarter than the last. In the first quarter, 450 accounts were being breached every minute, in quarter two however, 459 accounts were leaked every 60 seconds. This growth comes after one of the least eventful quarters in this century in terms of data breaches.
The trend in Malaysia is no different. Breach rate is rising from one to five breached accounts per minute. Surfshark's analysis shows how data breaches in Malaysia continue to grow rapidly, especially in light of the recent alleged National Registration Department (NRD) data breach, which contained information of 22.5 million Malaysians born between 1940 and 2004.
Surfshark's data shows that East Asia experiences the biggest spike in data breaches where Japan had the biggest spike in breached users when comparing the second quarter with the first quarter of the year where it experienced a 14-fold rise in victims compared to last quarter and had a striking 1.3 mil breached users. China showed the mentioned 1,092 per cent jump, alongside South Korea (1, 013 per cent), and Brazil (770 per cent).
The Data Breach World Map was developed in partnership with independent cybersecurity researchers, who collected loads of user data from 27,000 breached databases that appeared online.
Researchers could then sort those combinations based on specific data points, such as countries, and perform a statistical analysis of their findings. Users' locations were identified by email or website domain name, country, city, coordinates, IP address, locale, currency or phone number. Associations to specific data breach instances are only stipulated.
The map is updated every month with the most recent data from Surfshark's independent partners. At the time of this particular study, the data analysed was from July 1, 2022.