NEW YORK, April 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cybercriminals are
continuing to exploit human nature as they rely on familiar attack
patterns such as phishing, and increase their reliance on
ransomware, where data is encrypted and a ransom is demanded, finds
the Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report.
This year's report highlights repeating themes from prior year's
findings and storylines that continue to play off of human nature,
including:
- Eighty-nine (89) percent of all attacks involve financial or
espionage motivations.
- Most attacks exploit known vulnerabilities that have never been
patched despite patches being available for months, or even years.
In fact, the top 10 known vulnerabilities accounted for 85 percent
of successful exploits.
- Sixty-three (63) percent of confirmed data breaches involve
using weak, default or stolen passwords.
- 95 percent of breaches and 86 percent of security incidents
fall into nine patterns
- Ransomware attacks increased by 16 percent over 2015
findings.
- Basic defenses continue to be sorely lacking in many
organizations.
"The Data Breach Investigations Report's increasing importance
to businesses, law enforcement and governmental agencies
demonstrates a strong desire to stay ahead of cybercrime," said
Chris Formant, president of Verizon
Enterprise Solutions. "Now more than ever, the collaboration and
contributions evidenced in the DBIR from organizations across the
globe are required to fully understand the threat landscape. And
understanding is the first step toward addressing that threat."
Phishing tops the list of increasing concerns
One area that has picked up dramatically over the prior year is
phishing i.e. where end users receive an email from a fraudulent
source. Alarmingly, 30 percent of phishing messages were
opened – up from 23 percent in the 2015 report – and 13 percent of
those clicked to open the malicious attachment or nefarious
link.
In prior years, phishing was only a leading attack pattern for
cyber-espionage and has now spread to seven of the nine
incident patterns in the 2016 report. Its popularity has risen
because it is an amazingly effective technique and offers attackers
a number of advantages such as a very quick time to compromise and
the ability to target specific individuals and
organizations.
Adding to the list of human error are those caused by end users
of an organization. 'Miscellaneous errors' take the No. 1
spot for security incidents in this year's report. These can
include improper disposal of company information, misconfiguration
of IT systems, and lost and stolen assets such as laptops and
smartphones. In fact, 26 percent of these errors involve people
mistakenly sending sensitive information to the wrong person.
"You might say our findings boil down to one common theme -- the
human element," said Bryan Sartin,
executive director of global security services, Verizon Enterprise
Solutions. "Despite advances in information security research and
cyber detection solutions and tools, we continue to see many of the
same errors we've known about for more than a decade now. How do
you reconcile that?"
Of increasing concern to Verizon's security researchers is the
speed in which cybercrime is committed. In 93 percent of cases, it
took attackers minutes or less to compromise systems and data
exfiltration occurred within minutes in 28 percent of the
cases.
As with the 2015 report, compromises of mobile and Internet of
Things devices are not a significant factor in the 2016 DBIR.
However, the report notes that proof of concept exploits are real
and it's only a matter of time before a large scale breach impacts
mobile and IoT devices, which means organizations should continue
to be vigilant about protecting smartphones and IoT devices.
Also worth noting from the report is that Web application
attacks climbed to the #1 spot for data breaches, up 33 percent
over prior year, and the vast majority (95 percent) were
financially motivated.
The rise of the three-pronged attack
This year's report calls out the rise of a new three-pronged
attack that is being repeated over and over again by
cybercriminals. Many organizations are falling prey to this type of
attack. The three-prongs are:
- Sending a phishing email with a link pointing to the malicious
website, or a malicious attachment.
- Malware is downloaded onto an individual's PC that establishes
the initial foothold, and additional malware can be used to look
for secrets and internal information to steal (cyberespionage) or
encrypt files for ransom. Many times the malware steals credentials
to multiple applications through key logging.
- Use of the credentials for further attacks, for example, to log
into third-party websites like banking or retail sites.
"The goal is to understand how the cybercriminals operate," said
Sartin. "By knowing their patterns, we can best prevent, detect and
respond to attacks."
2016 report reiterates the need for the basics
The researchers note that basic, well-executed measures continue
to be more important than complex systems. Organizations should
check to make sure they are taking care of these
things:
- Know what attack patterns are most common for your
industry.
- Utilize two-factor authentication for your systems and other
applications, such as popular social networking sites.
- Patch promptly.
- Monitor all inputs: Review all logs to help identify malicious
activity.
- Encrypt your data: If stolen devices are encrypted, it's much
harder for attackers to access the data.
- Train your staff: Developing security awareness within your
organization is critical especially with the rise in phishing
attacks.
- Know your data and protect it accordingly. Also limit who
has access to it.
"This year's report once again demonstrates that there is no
such thing as an impenetrable system, but often times even a basic
defense will deter cybercriminals who will move on to look for an
easier target," added Sartin.
The Data Breach Investigations Report series Is based on
actual caseloads
Now in its ninth year of publication, the "2016 Data Breach
Investigations Report" analyzes more than 2,260 confirmed data
breaches and more than 100,000 reported security incidents in this
year's report – the highest since the report's inception in 2008.
The report addresses more than 10,000 breaches and nearly
300,000 security incidents that have occurred over more than 11
years. The DBIR includes security incidents that don't result in
breaches, in order to offer a better survey of the cybersecurity
landscape. Verizon is among 67 global organizations that
contributed data and analysis to this year's report.
Download the report
The full "2016 Data Breach Investigations Report,"
high-resolution charts and additional resources supporting the
research are available on the DBIR Media Resource Center.
Verizon delivers unparalleled managed security
services
Verizon is a leader in delivering global managed security
solutions to enterprises in the financial services, retail,
government, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and energy and
transportation sectors. Verizon combines powerful intelligence and
analytics with an expansive breadth of professional and managed
services, including customizable advanced security operations and
managed threat protection services, next-generation commercial
technology monitoring and analytics, rapid incident response and
forensics investigations and identity management. Verizon brings
the strength and expert knowledge of more than 550 consultants
across the globe to proactively reduce security threats and lower
information risks to organizations.
For more information, visit us at
http://www.verizonenterprise.com/solutions/security/.
For ongoing security insight and analysis from some of the
world's most distinguished security researchers, read the Verizon
Security Blog.
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in
New York City, generated nearly
$132 billion in 2015 revenues.
Verizon operates America's most reliable wireless network, with
112.6 million retail connections nationwide. The company also
provides communications and entertainment services over America's
most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business
solutions to customers worldwide.
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Media contacts:
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janet.brumfield@verizon.com
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SOURCE Verizon