Cyber-Attacks Continue to Be Financially Motivated, Verizon Finds

Over the last 10 years, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) has provided a highly detailed data set on security breaches. The 2017 edition of the report, which was released on April 27, analyzed a filtered data set of 42,068 security incidents across multiple industries around the world. Of those security incidents, 1,935 were confirmed to be breaches, 73 percent of which were financially motivated. The type of attacks used as well as the reason for attack varied depending on the specific industry vertical. An interesting trend that Verizon observed is that internal resources are increasingly getting credit for discovering breaches. Verizon also found that 75 percent of all the breaches analyzed were perpetrated by outsiders. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at some of the highlights of the 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report.

Verizon gets reports from multiple sources and then filters them to get a more accurate representation of malicious activities on the internet. For the 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report, Verizon analyzed 42,068 security incidents, of which 1,935 were actual security breaches.

How cyber-criminals attack industries often varies depending on the specific industry as does the root causes for breaches.

Looking across all industry verticals, the majority (75 percent) of breaches analyzed by Verizon in 2016 were perpetrated by outsiders.

In past editions of the DBIR, third parties were typically the primary source for breach discovery. In 2016, internal resources became increasingly responsible for discovering breaches.

Breaches occur for a variety of reasons, though hacking and malware have remained the leading causes in recent years.

Verizon, much like every other security vendor, reported that 2016 was a milestone year for ransomware growth.

Two-thirds of malware in 2016 was installed on victims’ systems by way of malicious email attachments. Verizon also reported that 73 percent of breaches were financially motivated.