This week, Verizon released its annual Data Breach Investigations Report, which examined numerous cyber attacks from the previous year. This one studied 1,367 confirmed data breaches and 63,437 security incidents that put the integrity, confidentiality or availability of information at risk.
According to the numbers, Web application attacks, cyber-espionage and point-of-sale intrusions were among the top IT security threats in 2013. Certain sectors were targeted more than others as the financial industry experienced 465 breaches, the public sector saw 175, retail 148 and accommodation 137.
Hacking, malware and social engineering topped the list of the ways that cyber criminals have been able to gain access to financial data and company and customer information.
"A lot of attackers simply look for vulnerable victims on the Internet and deploy automated attacks," said Paul Pratley, an investigations manager with the RISK Team at Verizon. "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. That's something we'd really like to see change."
The report did find a positive. More companies were able to identify security issues on their own than were notified by an external threat detection system for the first time in the history of the report.
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