The 8 Most Common Causes of Data Breaches
By Fahmida Y. Rashid
May, 2013
This whitepaper by InformationWeek discusses the
eight most common types of data breaches based on research by Verizon. Verizon
researched 621 data breaches. It found that 78% of all data breaches were low
difficulty. Most of these breaches could have been prevented with better
security policies. Verizon found that 92% of all data breaches were the work of
external parties. Another 14% were done by insiders and only 1% were done by
business partners. Verizon found that 71% of the attackers targeted the end
user’s computers. Verizon described 75% of the attacks as opportunistic, that
is, the attacker exploited weaknesses he knew how to take easy advantage of.
Weak and stolen security credentials remain the
biggest means of security breaches. Verizon found the 76% of breaches were
cause by weak credentials. This includes guessing passwords and cracking weak
passwords. Stealing passwords from another site is another common means. People
will often use the same password on multiple sites. Passwords are also
compromised through keylogging malware or phishing. Verizon estimated that
multifactor authentication could have stopped 80% of these attacks.
The second category of common data breaches Verizon
found were back doors and application vulnerabilities. Some of these methods
are well known, such a SQL injection attacks, and yet still widely effective. Many
of these attacks can be done by amateurs with scripts and automated tools.
The third common types of attack are done through
malware. Directly installed malware made up 74% of all malware cases. Many
times it was done by simply downloading the malware on to an unattended
computer.
Verizon found the social engineering made up a third
of the cases. Verizon noticed that there was a big upswing in these types of
attacks. Phishing was by far the most common method of social engineering,
making up 77% if these attacks. The increasing amount of personal information
on social sites is making social engineering easier.
Verizon found that many security breaches could have
been eliminated by properly managing data permissions. Users are too commonly
given access to data they have no real need for.
Another category of data breaches was misuse of data
by insiders. This is a challenge because users think that they are entitled to
the data. Insiders commonly transfer data to personal devices. One survey said
that 56% of people did not think it was wrong to take company information with
them when they left the job. Much of this information could end up with a
competitor.
Physical attacks make up 35% of the attacks in
Verizon’s survey. One growing type of physical attack is ATM skimming and another
is tampering with point of sales devices.
Data breaches can sometimes happen through user
error or improper system configuration. These errors are rarely reported
outside the organization.
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