A data breach can conjure a lot of images in your mind’s eye. Today, it brings mental images of hackers breaking into a digital vault of information. A decade or two ago that vault may have been physical. And go way back in time and there were ancient libraries full of valued information. Since humans have existed information and knowledge has been power. Today that is more true than ever.
One of the oldest and most significant data breaches was the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. It was not an intentional breach, and it saw no items being stolen, it was a breach of pure destruction. Thinking in modern terms, this library had the equivalent of 571 GB of data.
Looking at a modern example, from January 2022 to November 2022, 15 million global data records were breached. From 2013 to 2020 there were 6.2 billion breaches in the U.S alone. Even when compared to the most historic data breach, the enormous amounts of information breached today make it look tiny.
This is why cybersecurity and information protection is so important. Countries, companies, citizens, all need to put active effort into maintaining their information. If they don’t, it won’t be long before it’s stolen, destroyed, or changed.
