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The largest reported data leakage as of December 2025 was the **** data breach in **, which exposed ** billion data records. The second-largest data breach in history so far, the *, occurred in .

The National Public Data (NPD) Breach, listed * was disclosed in April 2024. The incident became public when personally identifiable information of individuals became available for sale on the dark web. Overall, the security professionals estimate the leakage of nearly billion personal records. 

Another significant data leakage was the March 2018 security breach of India's national ID database, Aadhaar, with over *** billion records exposed. This included biometric information such as identification numbers and fingerprint scans, which could be used to open bank accounts and receive financial aid, among other government services. 

Cybercrime: the dark side of digitalization

As the world continues its journey into the digital age, corporations and governments across the globe have been increasing their reliance on technology to collect, analyze, and store personal data. This, in turn, has led to a rise in the number of cyber crimes, ranging from minor breaches to global-scale attacks impacting billions of users, such as in the case of Yahoo. Within the U.S. alone, cases of data compromise were reported in 2022. This was a marked increase from the *** cases reported a decade prior.

The high price of data protection

In 2024, the average cost of a single data breach across all industries worldwide stood at **** million U.S. dollars. This was found to be most costly in the healthcare sector, with each leak reported to have cost the affected party a hefty **** million U.S. dollars. The financial segment followed closely behind. Here, each breach resulted in a loss of **** million U.S. dollars.