The number of data breaches tracked in 2014 hit a record high of 783, according to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, sponsored by IDT911. This represents a 27.5-percent increase over the number of breaches reported in 2013, and an increase of 18.3 percent over the previous high of 662 breaches tracked in 2010.

I recently interviewed Marc Goodman, founder of the Future Crimes Institute and author of the recently published book “Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable, and What We Can Do About It.” In his book, Goodman sets forth with great precision the frightening extent to which current and emerging technologies are harming national and corporate security, putting people’s lives at risk, eroding privacy, and even altering our perceptions of reality.

 Mastercard and Visa are implementing new cybersecurity measures to ensure that hacked credit card data will be less valuable to hackers.

Two U.S. senators want new-vehicle stickers to include a “cyber dashboard” that would include ratings for cyber security systems. 

The U.S. government is creating a new agency to monitor cybersecurity threats.

BMW says it has found a solution to a security flaw that could have allowed hackers to open doors of 2.2 million BMWs, Mini and Rolls-Royce vehicles. 

In 2009, Heartland Payment Systems announced that it had suffered a devastating breach: 134 million credit cards were exposed through SQL Injection attacks used to install spyware on Heartland’s data systems. The company processes payments for debit, prepaid and credit cards, in addition to online payments and checks and payroll services.  

 Frankly, it’s costing U.S. businesses more than other nations’ enterprises worldwide, according to data collected in the 2014 Cost of Cyber Crime Study: United Statesfrom the Ponemon Institute and HP Enterprise Security. The mean cost of cyber crime for a company in the U.S. last year was $12.7 million per year; other countries’ enterprises mean costs ranged from Germany’s $8.13 million to Russia’s mere $3.33 million. The study observes a $1.1 million (or 9.3 percent) increase in cyber crime costs for the U.S. from last year’s report.  

Congress has proposed dozens of bills related to cybersecurity topics over the last decade, all of which went nowhere. That is, until recently.