Ride the Lightning

Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

2020 Verizon Data Breach Report: It’s All About the Money

June 2, 2020

Hat tip to Dave Ries. Here's a quick guide to the essential findings of the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, which analyzed a record total of 157,525 incidents. Of those, 32.002 met their quality standards and 3,950 were confirmed data breaches.

What tactics were utilized?

  • 45% of breaches featured hacking
  • Errors were causal events in 22% of the breaches
  • 22% included social attacks
  • 17% involved malware
  • 8% of breaches were misuse by authorized users

Who's behind the breaches?

  • 70% were perpetrated by external actors
  • Organized criminal groups were behind 55% of breaches
  • 30% involved internal actors

Who are the victims?

  • 81% of breaches were contained in days
  • 72% of those breached involved large business victims
  • 58% had personal data compromised
  • 28% of breaches involved small business victims

What are the other commonalities?

  • 86% of breaches were financially motivated
  • Web applications were involved in 43% of breaches
  • 37% of breaches stole or used credentials
  • 27% of malware incidents were ransomware
  • 22% of breaches involved phishing

Of note was the increase in cloud breaches which now represent 24% of breaches. 77% of cloud breaches involved breached credentials. Time to up our security game when it comes to humans creating passwords!

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
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