Russia reported the most data breaches in Q1 2022, with over 3,5-million incidences representing an 11% surge over Q4 2021.
That increase saw it leapfrog the US as the most affected country globally, according to CryptoMonday analysis.
Jonathan Merry, CEO of CryptoMonday, comments: “You can’t divorce Russia’s data breaching woes from its incursion into Ukraine. That action has earned it many enemies within the hacker community. These are targeting Russian assets in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. A perfect example would be the Anonymous hacker group who’ve announced a hacking campaign against the nation.”
CryptoMonday’s analysis shows that the Russian data violations peaked in March. The country recorded a 136% spike in those breaches from February’s occurrences. That was a fivefold jump from January’s figures, underlining the need for vigilance in our online activities.
Though alarming, a surge in the Russian numbers pales in comparison to events elsewhere. Hong Kong, for instance, recorded a 946% jump in episode, with its data leaks hitting the 311 000 mark in Q1 2022.
Poland is another nation that recorded a proliferation of data intrusion cases, and its Q1 2022 tally rose by 514% from Q4 2021 to stand at 916 000.
However, many other nations registered declines in their cases of compromised data. South Korea leads the way here, having reduced its Q4 2021 occurrences by 92%.
Similarly, Brazil cut down its last quarter’s numbers by 80%. Other nations that made big progress in containing data breaches were Spain (70%), Ukraine (67%), Canada (63%), India (62%), and the US (47%).