Business Can't Keep Up With Shifting Cyber-Threats

By Samuel Greengard

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Business Can't Keep Up With Shifting Cyber-Threats

Identity theft is the leading risk for a data breach, but cyber-criminals are increasingly targeting data records from health care organizations and government.
More Breaches, Fewer Records

Data breaches increased by 10% in the first half of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014, but the number of compromised data records declined by 41%.
Big Breaches

The top 10 breaches represented 10% of the total records compromised. However, the number of records compromised was unknown for 50% of breaches.
Sources of Pain

62% of breaches came from malicious outsiders, 22% resulted from accidental loss, 12% were from malicious insiders, and 2% were from hactivists and state sponsored hacking.
Data Targets

53% of attacks involved identity theft, 22% were focused on financial access, 11% were looking for existential data (abstract data types), 11% were after account access and about 3% were simply nuisance attacks.
Industry Matters

The government and health care sectors accounted for 31% and 34% of compromised records, respectively. The retail sector saw a significant drop in the number of stolen records, accounting for only 4%, compared with 38% for the same period in 2014.
Global Risk

North America represented the largest target, with 80% of data breaches. Europe experienced 10% of attacks, Asia/Pacific 7%, Middle East/Africa 2% and South America 1%.
U.S. in the Crosshairs

Overall, 76% of data breaches occurred in the U.S., accounting for 49% of all compromised records.
Encrypted Data

About 4% of all breaches involved encrypted data during the first half of 2015, compared with only 1% during the same period in 2014.
Three Keys

The report found that best-practice companies focus on three primary areas: controlling user access, encrypting data, and storing and managing keys.
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Coping with data breaches is a daunting task, and the problem keeps getting worse. A recently released study conducted by Gemalto (formerly SafeNet), found that hackers are continuing to bypass conventional perimeter security with relative ease, and they are targeting nearly every industry. The "2015 First Half Review" also found that threats are changing, but many organizations aren't keeping up. While identity theft remains the leading risk for a data breach, cyber-criminals are increasingly targeting data records from health care organizations and government, as the recent Anthem Insurance and U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breaches illustrate. "Most companies are not able to protect their data once their perimeter defenses are compromised," said Jason Hart, vice president and CTO for Data Protection, Gemalto. "What is needed is a data-centric view of digital threats, starting with better identity and access control techniques including multifactor authentication and strong encryption to render sensitive information useless to thieves." Overall, the study examined 888 data breaches that took place during the first half of the year, which included about 246 million records worldwide. Gemalto examined a variety of sources, including Internet searches, news articles and Internet analysis to develop its Breach Level Index. Here's a look at some of the key findings.

This article was originally published on 2015-10-06

Samuel Greengard writes about business and technology for Baseline, CIO Insight and other publications. His most recent book is The Internet of Things (MIT Press, 2015).

Business Can't Keep Up With Shifting Cyber-Threats

Business Can't Keep Up With Shifting Cyber-Threats

More Breaches, Fewer Records

Big Breaches

Sources of Pain

Data Targets

Industry Matters

Global Risk

U.S. in the Crosshairs

Encrypted Data

Three Keys