Data breach investigations report shows 50% rise in ransomware attacks

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A recent report from Juniper Research found that, despite significant investment in cybersecurity, data breaches will have cost the global business community $8trillion by 2022, mostly in fines, lost businesses and remediation costs.

victims.pngNew research, from Verizon, analysed more than 2,000 breaches from 65 organisations. Of the breaches analyzed, 300 were found to be espionage-related, many of which started out as phishing emails. This type of attack was found to be the most common type seen in the government, manufacturing and education sectors.

small b.pngProbably the biggest trend this year is the rise of ransomware. In Verizon’s 2014 report, ransomware was the 22nd most common form of malware. This year it’s number five. According to the report authors, the ability for hackers to get a “quick buck” from ransomware means this particular threat won’t be abating any time soon.

It doesn’t help that people are still falling for phishing scams. According to Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report, 1 in 14 users were tricked into following a link or opening an attachment – and a quarter of those went on to be tricked more than once. Where phishing successfully opened the door, malware was then typically put to work to capture and export data – or take control of systems.

Another cybercrime tactic discussed in Verizon’s report is “pretexting”, or the impersonation of a company official by spoofing and email to gain information from employees.

“Pretexting is a very big threat that will continue to grow because it takes advantage of urgency and common cultural situations where employees will set aside procedures and policies in order to make sure the boss does not get upset,” says Paul Calatayud, CTO of Intelligent Security Management Firm, FireMon.

“Most phishing training focuses on the content: malware and links more than the sender and in this case the sender and what is being asked is the issue. People will no doubt feel under pressure to make sure the boss is happy and some of the requests will seem entirely legitimate to the right employee.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kristina Knight-1
Kristina Knight, Journalist , BA
Content Writer & Editor
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Kristina Knight is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience writing on varied topics. Kristina’s focus for the past 10 years has been the small business, online marketing, and banking sectors, however, she keeps things interesting by writing about her experiences as an adoptive mom, parenting, and education issues. Kristina’s work has appeared with BizReport.com, NBC News, Soaps.com, DisasterNewsNetwork, and many more publications.