From the press release:
The 2010 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, based on a first-of-its kind collaboration with the U.S. Secret Service, has found that breaches of electronic records last year involved more insider threats, greater use of social engineering and the continued strong involvement of organized criminal groups.
The study, released Wednesday (July 28), also noted that the overall number of breaches investigated last year declined from the total for the previous year – “a promising” indication, the study said.
The report cited stolen credentials as the most common way of gaining unauthorized access into organizations in 2009, pointing once again to the importance of strong security practices both for individuals and organizations. Organized criminal groups were responsible for 85 percent of all stolen data last year, the report said.
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The collaboration with the Secret Service, announced in May, enabled this year’s Data Breach Investigations Report to provide an expanded view of data breaches over the last six years. With the addition of Verizon’s 2009 caseload and data contributed by the Secret Service — which investigates financial crimes — the report covers 900-plus breaches involving more than 900 million compromised records.
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Key Findings of the 2010 Report
This year’s key findings both reinforce prior conclusions and offer new insights. These include:
- Most data breaches investigated were caused by external sources. Sixty-nine percent of breaches resulted from these sources, while only 11 percent were linked to business partners. Forty-nine percent were caused by insiders, which is an increase over previous report findings, primarily due in part to an expanded dataset and the types of cases studied by the Secret Service.
- Many breaches involved privilege misuse. Forty-eight percent of breaches were attributed to users who, for malicious purposes, abused their right to access corporate information. An additional 40 percent of breaches were the result of hacking, while 28 percent were due to social tactics and 14 percent to physical attacks.
- Commonalities continue across breaches. As in previous years, nearly all data was breached from servers and online applications. Eight-five percent of the breaches were not considered highly difficult, and 87 percent of victims had evidence of the breach in their log files, yet missed it.
- Meeting PCI-DSS compliance still critically important. Seventy-nine percent of victims subject to the PCI-DSS standard hadn’t achieved compliance prior to the breach.
The State of Cybercrime: 2010
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Data breaches continue to occur within all types of organizations. Financial services, hospitality and retail still comprise the “Big Three” of industries affected (33 percent, 23 percent and 15 percent, respectively) in the merged Verizon-Secret Service dataset, though tech services edged out retail in Verizon’s caseload. A growing percentage of cases and an astounding 94 percent of all compromised records in 2009 were attributable to financial services.
More than half of the breaches investigated by Verizon in 2009 occurred outside the U.S., while the bulk of the breaches investigated by the Secret Service occurred in the U.S. The report finds no correlation between an organization’s size and its chances of suffering a data breach.
“Thieves are more likely to select targets based on the perceived value of the data and cost of attack than victim characteristics such as size,” Verizon researchers noted.
Recommendations for Enterprises
The 2010 study once again shows that simple actions, when done diligently and continually, can reap big benefits. These actions include:
- Restrict and monitor privileged users. The data from the Secret Service showed that there were more insider breaches than ever before. Insiders, especially highly privileged ones, can be difficult to control. The best strategies are to trust but verify by using pre-employment screening; limit user privileges; and employ separation of duties. Privileged use should be logged and messages detailing activity generated to management.
- Watch for ‘Minor’ Policy Violations. The study finds a correlation between seemingly minor policy violations and more serious abuse. This suggests that organizations should be wary of and adequately respond to all violations of an organization’s policies. Based on case data, the presence of illegal content on user systems or other inappropriate behavior is a reasonable indicator of a future breach. Actively searching for such indicators may prove even more effective.
- Implement Measures to Thwart Stolen Credentials. Keeping credential-capturing malware off systems is priority No. 1. Consider two-factor authentication where appropriate. If possible, implement time-of-use rules, IP blacklisting and restricting administrative connections.
- Monitor and Filter Outbound Traffic. At some point during the sequence of events in many breaches, something (data, communications, connections) goes out externally via an organization’s network that, if prevented, could break the chain and stop the breach. By monitoring, understanding and controlling outbound traffic, an organization can greatly increase its chances of mitigating malicious activity.
- Change Your Approach to Event Monitoring and Log Analysis. Almost all victims have evidence of the breach in their logs. It doesn’t take much to figure out that something is amiss and make needed changes. Organizations should make time to review more thoroughly batch-processed data and analysis of logs. Make sure there are enough people, adequate tools and sufficient processes in place to recognize and respond to anomalies.
- Share Incident Information. An organization’s ability to fully protect itself is based on the information available to do so. Verizon believes the availability and sharing of information are crucial in the fight against cybercrime. We commend all those organizations that take part in this effort, through such data-sharing programs as the Verizon VERIS Framework.
A complete copy of the “2010 Data Breach Investigations Report” is available at http://www.verizonbusiness.com/go/2010databreachreport/.
Their findings on the percentage of cases involving insiders is lower than that reported earlier this week in a different study by ArcSight and Ponemon. The ArcSight study, which focused on the costs of cybercrime, was conducted over a four-week period with 45 companies (as compared to the 900 cases in the Verizon report), and found that 62% of breaches involved insiders. Other findings from that study included:
- The median annualized cost of the 45 organizations in was $3.8 million per year, but one firm in the study spent over $52 million per year.
- Cyber crimes are intrusive and common occurrences. The companies in the study experienced 50 successful attacks per week and more than one successful attack per company per week.
- The most costly cyber crimes are those caused by web attacks, malicious code and malicious insiders. These account for more than 90 percent of all cyber crime costs per organization on an annual basis.
- In this benchmark study sample, the average number of days to resolve a cyber attack was 14 days with an average cost to the organization of $17,696 per day. The survey revealed that malicious insider attacks can take up to 42 days or more to resolve.