Last month was National Cyber Security Awareness Month and 2011 looks to be the “Year of the Data Breach”. It is more important than ever to be ever vigilant about the security of your data.

A study conducted by the Verizon RISK Team with cooperation from the U.S. Secret Service and the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit gives us some significant statistics on data breaches:

• 92% stemmed from external agents
• 50% utilized some form of hacking and 49% incorporated malware
• 83% of victims were targets of opportunity
• 92% of attacks were not highly difficult
• 76% of all data was compromised from servers
• 86% were discovered by a third party
• 96% of breaches were avoidable through simple or intermediate controls
• 89% of victims subject to PCI-DSS had not achieved compliance

In light of these statistics, our previous articles on Beefing Up Your Passwords, PCI Compliance, and the Top 10 Best Practices for Fighting Credit Card Theft Fraud by our partner, 3DSI, are worth a revisit.

It’s also a good idea to check if your email address or username and associated information may have been compromised. Brian Krebs offers a good article on his blog, Krebs on Security, on new website called Pwnedlist.com that can check to see if your account information has been published.