NEW YORK – Human error was the number one cause of data security incidents in 2014, according to a new report released by the Privacy and Data Protection Team at the law firm BakerHostetler. In a review of all incidents that the firm worked on in 2014, employee negligence was responsible 36% of the time, followed by theft by outsiders (22%), theft by insiders (16%), malware (16%) and phishing attacks (14%).

According to the firm, data security incidents were self-detected 64% of the time and of those reported by a third party, 27% of incidents were due to theft. For incidents that involved identifiable dates of detection and notification, the average amount of time that elapsed from incident occurrence to detection was 134 days.

Among the other notable statistics in the report are:

• Not all security lapses involved the theft or hacking of electronic records. Of the incidents included in the report, 21% involved paper records.
• For incidents involving stolen payment card data, PCI Data Security Standards fines for non-compliance ranged from $5,000 to $50,000 per matter. Initial demands for operating expense and fraud assessments ranged from $3 to $25 per card involved.
• 58% of the incidents required notification of affected individuals – based on state breach notification laws. (Congress is still working out details on establishing a national breach notification law.)
• In 75 incidents where notification letters were mailed, only five of the companies faced litigation by potentially affected individuals.