Data Breaches increasing 1000% in 5years?

[Andrew Waite]

The Register have just run a new article on a common theme; data breaches, intrusions, malware etc. are increasing *shock* *horror*.

Apart from rolling my eyes when I see these kinds of articles as the kind of FUD that's used as link bait, I also often stop to think behind the stats:
Are these incidents actually increasing?
Are we as an industry just getting better at identifying these occurances so we're now reporting issues that would have been missed previously?
Are the topics just becoming more news worthy so we're getting more newspaper inches?

I'll be honest, I've got no answer to these questions, just a few gut feelings. Would be interested to know others thoughts.

[ajohnson]

There will also be more people online, more people with multiple devices (i.e. smart phones), and application and service functionality will be increased exponentially across the board.

[sternone]

There will also be more people online, more people with multiple devices (i.e. smart phones), and application and service functionality will be increased exponentially across the board.

There will be less hacks in the future.

Buffer overflows will be hardware and compiler wise protected and compilers will be more intelligent in producing software security holes.

I talk to many programmers, there is a change since the whole anonymous group in the press, the coders are much more aware of the security issues.

[jjwinter]

Being careful is hard, and takes time .

versus

Companies need to release products into the marketplace in a timely manner.

I think security will be on the losing side of that balancing act for years to come.