Impact Versus Frequency on Cybersecurity Breach Trends in the Business and Medical Industry to Identify Human Error

As life becomes more digitally oriented, we need to emphasize cybersecurity and its awareness. Particularly in industries such as medicine and business that contain sensitive information, like social security numbers or payment information, which if stolen can result in identity theft. With the right security measures in place, we can maintain a new standard of data privacy as the response to data breaches becomes more efficient. This paper aims to analyze two datasets to compare and recognize any ongoing data breach trends from 2005 to 2019 and from 2009 to 2022. After identifying these trends, we will determine whether these cybersecurity threats are mostly due to human error or if the organizations targeted most have weaker cybersecurity systems. Through our analysis, we found that the business sector loses thirty-nine times more records than medical, however medical is targeted significantly more. Whereas in business the top type of attack is usually hacking or malware, most medical breaches are either unintended disclosures or physical loss which is why fewer records are compromised. With deliberation, we conclude that human error is an element in the majority of large-scale breaches, as well as pointing out the necessity for stronger cybersecurity systems and teams.