Cybersecurity report ranks Malaysia as eighth most breached country in Q3 2023

Cybersecurity company Surfshark has ranked Malaysia as the eighth most breached country in Q3 2023 with 494,699 leaked accounts.

“The breach rate is 144% higher in Q3 2023 than it was in Q2 2023. Around four Malaysian user accounts were leaked every minute in Q3 2023,” the company said in a statement.

It added that Malaysia is also ranked No. 5 in terms of breach density where approximately 5,436 accounts were breached per day.

Breach density is measured by dividing a country’s total breach number by its population, according to Surfshark.

“This metric allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the likelihood of experiencing a data breach in various countries,” it added.

Released in November, the study looks at global data breaches between July and September in over 200 countries and territories. The company said it is based on data collected by independent partners from 29,000 publicly available databases and aggregated email addresses.

It defined a data breach as an event where the intruder copied and leaked user data such as names, usernames, email addresses and passwords.

Globally, it found that 31.5 million accounts were breached with the US in first place with 8.1 million leaked accounts, followed by Russia (7.1 million), France (1.6 million), China (1.4 million) and Mexico (1.2 million).

“The third quarter of 2023 shows a general decrease in data breach count. Yet every minute, over 240 online accounts were compromised globally, exposing sensitive information to malicious actors,” Surfshark lead researcher Agneska Sablovskaja said in a statement.

She added: “We recommend a vigilant approach by maintaining accounts only on actively used platforms and implementing two-factor authentication for enhanced security.”

After suffering an account breach, the company also recommends that users change their passwords, contact the bank if credit card details were compromised, scan devices for malware and request for leaked accounts to be deleted if they no longer use the service.