Nearly half of data breaches in EMEA are initiated internally, according to new research from Verizon's annual report. Data Breach Investigation Report.
According to the report, the main causes of cybersecurity incidents across the region are various errors, system intrusions, and social engineering, which account for 87% of breaches. The most common types of data compromised are 64% personal data, 33% internal data, and 20% credentials.
Similarly, more than two-thirds of breaches worldwide involve benign human acts, whether caused by a third party or not, and that percentage is about the same as last year.
However, reporting practices appear to be improving, with 20% of users identifying and reporting phishing in simulated engagements, and 11% of users who clicked on emails also reporting phishing.
Sanjiv Gossain, EMEA vice president for Verizon Business, said, “The continued human element in breaches is a trend that EMEA organizations can combat by prioritizing training and increasing awareness of cybersecurity best practices. It shows us that we must continue.”
“However, the increase in self-reporting is encouraging and indicates a cultural shift in the importance of cybersecurity awareness among the rank-and-file workforce.”
Zero-day vulnerabilities remain a persistent threat, and exploitation of vulnerabilities as an initial point of entry has increased since last year, now accounting for 14% of all breaches.
According to Verizon, this spike is primarily driven by the increasing scope and frequency of zero-day exploits by ransomware attackers, most notably the MOVEit breach.
Alistair Neil, senior director of EMEA security at Verizon Business, says this is largely due to interconnected supply chains.
“15% of breaches last year involved third parties, including data controllers, vulnerabilities in third-party software, and other direct or indirect supply chain issues,” he commented. .
Encouragingly, the rise of AI turns out to be less of a threat than the challenges of managing vulnerabilities at scale.
“Deployment of artificial intelligence to gain access to valuable corporate assets is on the horizon, but the failure to patch fundamental vulnerabilities means threat actors will not have to rapidly advance their approaches and “Uses can be focused on accelerating social engineering,” he said. Chris Novak, Senior Director, Cybersecurity Consulting.
Approximately one-third of all breaches involved some type of extortion technique, such as ransomware. Over the past two years, one in four financially motivated incidents involved a pretext attack, and over the past ten years, nearly one in three of all breaches involved the use of stolen credentials. I am.
“Verizon DBIR recognizes that basic security errors continue to put organizations at risk, such as the long time it takes to discover and patch vulnerabilities and employees not being trained to identify fraud. William Wright, CEO of Closed Door Security, commented:
“This has to change as a priority, because no company can afford to gamble or take risks when it comes to cyber hygiene. If you look at Change Healthcare, this breach has to do with insecure employees. The organization is currently facing losses of over 1 billion. We hope that other organizations will also take this position.”