We’re not even halfway through 2021 and more than five billion data records have already been leaked, according to a report from Atlas VPN.
The largest proportion (3.27 billion) came from a new compilation of data gathered in previous breaches. Called COMB, or Compilation Of Many Breaches, the database contains email addresses and passwords attached to users of various popular online services.
Another major leak came from Facebook, with data on about a fifth of its userbase (some 533 million users) leaked online. Iranian business and social messenger, Raychat, also made the list with a breach that exposed 267 million accounts, including names, emails and passwords.
Brazil experienced the largest leak in its history this year, with credit research firm Serasa exposing the information of 220 million customersijn January. In China, meanwhile, security company Cyble uncovered a database with 200 million records listed for sale on the dark web.
February was the worst month for data incidents, with 12 breaches and 3.4 billion records leaked. In March, there were just seven breaches and 153 million records exposed.
