SAN FRANCISCO (June 7, 2021) – ForgeRock®, a global digital identity leader, today announced findings from its 2021 Identity Breach Report, revealing an unprecedented 450% surge in breaches containing usernames and passwords globally. The report also found unauthorized access was the leading cause of breaches for the third consecutive year, increasing year-over-year for the past two years, accounting for 43% of all breaches in 2020.
The year 2020 witnessed a massive digital migration. People did almost everything remotely, doubling their amount of time spent online. Correspondingly, the total number of breaches increased and while the number of 100-million plus record “mega-breaches” dropped, cybercriminals broadened their attack surfaces to include organizations of all sizes and across industries to seize valuable assets. Breaches affecting smaller enterprises – with many still involving tens of millions of records – saw the biggest surge with a 50% increase. This reveals that smaller enterprises are also prime targets and can’t afford to put off adopting a Zero Trust posture.
Notably, unauthorized access continues to be the leading cause of breaches. Questionable yet common security practices, like sharing or reusing passwords, gave bad actors an easy path to gaining…
