A cybersecurity risk is the potential damage, loss, or exposure an organization or company is facing due to a cyber attack. Data breaches are one of the biggest challenges the United States is confronted with in regards to cybersecurity risks. There isn’t one country that isn’t vulnerable to cyber attacks; the U.S. and Iran face similar challenges in that they are the top two countries that have fallen victim to the most recorded data breaches in 2021. In a study conducted by Surfshark regarding the amount of data leaks that occurred in 2021, it was concluded that the U.S. and Iran came out as the top two countries with the highest report of unintentional information disclosures. The U.S. had a whopping 212.4 million data breaches and just behind was Iran with a reported 156.1 million (Surfshark, 2023). The numbers of the U.S. data breaches were far less shocking because of the previous numbers reported in 2020, with it only being a 20% increase. However, one large data breach was the catapult that sent Iran up to the top of the data breach list with their breach report increasing by 10842%. In 2021, Iran encountered one of their biggest and most costly data breaches yet; upwards of 150 million Iranian accounts were exposed after Irans’ most popular messaging platform, Raychat, was hacked (Surfshark, 2023). Data breaches compromise individuals information which can result in serious consequences for companies such as financial loss, legal penalties, reputational damage, and more. I chose to relate the U.S. and Iran because not only do they share the struggle of data breaches, but they came in as the top 2.

Reference

Surfshark. (2023, July 28). Data breach statistics by country: Recap of 2021. https://surfshark.com/blog/data-breach-statistics-by-country-in-2021