On October 22, 2026, risk and financial advisory firm Kroll released its 2026 annual Data Breach Outlook, revealing that two-thirds of surveyed organizations experienced a data breach in the past year. Furthermore, 69 percent of individuals affected by incidents handled by Kroll between June 2025 and June 2026 were impacted by third-party breaches.
Third-Party and Technology Sector Impact
Kroll's report found that 69 percent of 250 leaders surveyed experienced a breach in the previous 12 months, and 34 percent reported experiencing more than one. Technology sector breaches accounted for the highest number of affected individuals, with 79 percent of those individuals affected by a third-party breach linked to the technology sector.
While financial services accounted for the largest share of organizations breached at 20 percent, technology and insurance firms affected the highest number of individuals overall despite ranking seventh and ninth respectively for total organizations breached.
Cyber Insurance and Response Challenges
Dependency on vendors was cited as a top challenge by 41 percent of respondents when making breach-response decisions. Additionally, IT and technology leaders expressed greater concern over third parties than senior leaders, with 54 percent identifying vendor breaches as their biggest compliance risk.
Katherine Keefe noted that single supplier breaches can trigger numerous cyber insurance claims from businesses utilizing the same provider, thereby exponentially increasing potential losses compared to single-business incidents.
What to do
- Map third-party relationships and the subsequent domino effect, and put an agreed plan in place before an incident happens.
- Determine whose data was affected during a supplier breach and assess whether customers and regulators need to be notified.
Key facts and where they come from
- Two-thirds of organizations surveyed (69%) suffered a data breach in the past year.
two-thirds of organizations surveyed (69%) suffered a data breach in the past year.
- 34 percent of surveyed organizations reported experiencing more than one data breach.
More than a third (34%) were breached more than once
- 69 percent of affected individuals handled by Kroll were impacted by a third-party breach between June 2025 and June 2026.
69% of affected individuals were impacted by a third-party breach.
- Financial services accounted for 20 percent of organizations breached in Kroll's cases.
financial services accounted for the largest share of organizations breached in Kroll's cases, at 20%
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