An email user in the Philippines has been breached almost three times on average since 2004.
This was revealed in the Global Data Breach statistics by Surfshark, a global VPN provider. The study showed data breaches in the world in terms of leaked email addresses and “data points.”
Here, it was stated that a staggering total of 123,821,843 internet accounts were breached in the Philippines in the past two decades. These include leaked email addresses.
If email addresses were excluded, more than 400 million data points from local accounts were affected.
Of the 123 million, meanwhile, 50 million were unique email addresses or those that belong to specific individuals.
This means that an email address user has experienced a breach three times on average during the period of study.
Moreover, the Philippines also ranked fifth in Asia with the most breached accounts and 17th in the world.
Agneska Sablovskaja, Lead Researcher at Surfshark, said that in context, a Filipino has been affected by a data breach “at least once.”
“In Asia, 52 accounts are breached per 100 people on average. However, in the Philippines, this number goes up to 106 per 100 people. Statistically speaking, an average Filipino has been affected by data breaches around once,” Sablovskaja said.
Such findings are evident with the recent reports of compromised systems from government agencies since last September.
The largest so far was the hacking of servers of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), covering 13 million data.
These included personal information of PhilHealth members and employees.
The Medusa ransomware group declared themselves to be the ones behind this act.
READ: PhilHealth: 13 million members affected by data breach | After Philhealth cyber attack: DICT, PNP-ACG recommend steps to prevent ransomware | Are your emails safe? After PhilHealth cyber attack, here’s how to spot data breach)
The Philippine Statistics Authority and the Department of Science and Technology later revealed a form of data leak in its systems.
The data in Surfshark’s database, meanwhile, were gathered from 250 countries.
Based on the website, it was stated that the global statistics aimed to determine “how many accounts have been copied, transmitted, viewed, and stolen from data holders.”
“This page contains information about personal data breaches since 2004. Explore our interactive map, country comparisons, quarterly and country-level trends, regional analyses, and other leaked data point statistics to find out how many accounts have been copied, transmitted, viewed, and stolen from data holders,” the website reads.
Globally, since 2004, an alarming 17 billion accounts have been compromised. A third of these accounts have unique email addresses.
