Nine threat patterns account for 92% of all security incidents

Just nine threat patterns account for 92% of all security incidents, according to Verizon’s latest Data Breach Investigations Report.

Analysing 10 years of data, Verizon discovered that 92% of incidents over this period can be traced back to nine basic attack patterns.

These are crimeware; insider/privilege misuse; physical theft/loss; web application attacks; denial of service attacks; cyber-espionage; point-of-sale intrusions; payment-card skimmers; and miscellaneous errors such as sending a sensitive email to the wrong person.

The prominence of these attack patterns varies by industry, but on average, just three patterns account for 72% of security incidents in any industry. In the financial services sector for example, 75% of all incidents come from web application attacks, DDoS and card skimming.

Report author Wade Baker said analysing 10 years of data has led Verizon security researchers to conclude that “most organisations cannot keep up with cybercrime - and the bad guys are winning,”

Applying big data analytics to security analytics marks an attempt to “bend the curve and combat cybercrime more effectively and strategically,” he added.

The report also shows that the number one way to gain unauthorised access to information continues to be the use of stolen or misused credentials - two out of three breaches exploit weak or stolen passwords.

DDoS attacks have grown stronger year on year for the past three years, and are particularly common problems in the financial services, retail, professional, information and public sector industries.

While retail POS attacks have made headlines recently, the report shows that the frequency of these attacks have been trending downward since 2011.

Image courtesy of Eric Hauser under CC