According to a Verizon’s annual report on data breach investigations, hackers in 2013 were particularly invested in Web application attacks, cyber-espionage and point-of-sale intrusions. Finance suffered the most at the hands of cyber-criminals and was the victim of 465 separate reported breach incidents.
Finance’s dubious distinctions as leakiest industry is somewhat unsurprising given that the report found that the vast majority of attacks are financially motivated, with the use of stolen credentials representing the leading threat of 2013 and contributed to 422 breaches. Malware and more traditional hacking followed on the list.
The report also showed that while targets are getting better at detecting breaches, attackers are also getting much faster at deploying them.
“A lot of attackers simply look for vulnerable victims on the Internet and deploy automated attacks,” Paul Pratley, an investigations manager with the RISK Team at Verizon told PC World. “Often it will take seconds to minutes before a network is compromised, but it can take a really long time for an organization to discover it—weeks to months or even a year, he said. “That’s something we’d really like to see change.”
On the upside, the report also showed that organizations were more likely to find breaches themselves instead of being informed by third-parties.
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