Quote:According to new research released by cloud security firm Bitglass, from January to August this year, there were close to three times as many reported data breaches in the sector in comparison to the same period of time in 2016.

The report, which examines the current state of cybersecurity in the financial sector and uses information aggregated data from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC), says that 37 data breaches were reported in 2016, and 103 incidents have been reported so far in 2018.

According to Bitglass, attacks involving hacking, exploits, and the deployment of malware were responsible for close to 75 percent of all data breaches recorded in the financial sector over the course of this year. This has raised from roughly 20 percent over the past several years, in which breaches may have also been caused by insiders, human error, and third-party compromise or security failures.