More than a billion digital records were stolen during 2014 in a 78% increase on the previous year, according to a report by security vendor Gemalto.
The records included usernames, passwords, email addresses, phone number and even payment information, equating to 2.8 million records retrieved by hackers every day, for later use in spam campaigns, identity theft or card fraud.
Jason Hart, VP of cloud services, identity and data protection at Gemalto, said: "We’re clearly seeing a shift in the tactics of cybercriminals, with long-term identity theft becoming more of a goal than the immediacy of stealing a credit card number."
The huge figure comes from a mere 1,541 breaches, including the attacks on the likes of US retailer Home Depot, JP Morgan Chase and eBay, which together accounted for 337 million records that were taken.
More than three-quarters of the breaches took place in North America, home to the headquarters of many of the biggest victims, with a mere 12% attributed to Europe.
"Identity theft could lead to the opening of new fraudulent credit accounts, creating false identities for criminal enterprises, or a host of other serious crimes," Hart added.
"As data breaches become more personal, we’re starting to see that the universe of risk exposure for the average person is expanding."
