I just attended my 30 year high school reunion, and although a few of us are successful, the class of ’78 does seem to have more than its share of petty criminals, scrap metal thieves, purveyors of illegal substances and even a bank robber or two. In fact, crime seems to be on the increase, at least here in the Industrial Midwest. But it’s not just the street thugs that have moved into high gear, cyber thugs are in full force as well all over the world. And they don’t just want to steal the aluminum siding off your house, they want your identity. They’re after passwords and account numbers, and of course, email is one of several venues they use to perpetrate their attacks.

According to the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center, data breaches are at an all-time high. The group logged 69 percent more data breaches in the first half of the year than in the first half of last year. According to the report, data breaches at banks and health care organizations increased the most.

What’s behind the big increase? Part of the increase may be illusory, because banks and health care organizations in particular are under increased scrutiny due to government regulations and are simply reporting more accurately. But beyond that, it’s just a matter of an increasingly organized cybercrime underground.

The main reason for data breaches is lost or stolen laptops and storage media, and this accounted for 20 percent of reported breaches. Also for the first half of the year, 16 percent of breaches were the result of insider theft and 13.5 percent from subcontractors who either lost or stole data. These alarming statistics are all the more reason to implement an archiving policy to store all emails, so that in the event of such “data leakage,” a forensic analysis could be undertaken to find the source. E-discovery and email compliance should both be a part of any corporation’s security infrastructure. Besides keeping on the right side of regulations like HIPAA, SOX and the like, email archiving may just be the thing you need to help track down the guilty parties.