Research Sheds New Light on Big Data Breaches

In the world of information technology, we are constantly inundated with the threat, or at least the perceived threat, that the networked systems we rely on could be breached at any time. In their report, Hype and Heavy Tails: A Closer Look at Data Breaches, researchers with the University of New Mexico and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory outline the recent history of data breach trends.

Ben Edwards and Stephanie Forrest, with the University of New Mexico, said the study pointed to a “heavy-tailed distribution” and that the vast majority of breaches are small, with large breaches skewing the average results. Despite what equates to a less than knee-jerk look at the statistics surrounding cybersecurity, Edwards and Forrest are far from telling anyone to divest in network security. They just advocate for doing it rationally.