By Rodman Ramezanian - Global Cloud Threat Lead, Skyhigh Security
May 21, 2024 4 Minute Read
It’s that time of year again! The latest edition of Verizon’s highly acclaimed Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) has been released, offering key highlights and valuable insights into the ever-changing threat landscape, the most significant attack vectors, and targeted industries. Consider it the InfoSec industry’s annual report card.
The 2024 edition marks the 17th installment of the report and kicks off with an acknowledgment of the evolving cyber threat environment. Notably, the past year has been particularly active for cybercrime. Verizon analyzed 30,458 real-world security incidents, 10,626 of which were confirmed data breaches—a record high—affecting victims in 94 countries.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to peruse this latest Verizon DBIR report, here are some key takeaways and interesting insights:
Despite a decrease in Basic Web Application Attacks compared to social engineering and error-based attacks, stolen credentials are still involved in 77% of attacks.
The saying “humans are the weakest link” is fitting here. Despite strict security measures, humans remain vulnerable to social engineering and errors like system misconfigurations, weak passwords, and accidentally using malicious links or software. Cognitive biases also play a role, leading to overconfidence in threat detection and underestimating attack risks. Verizon’s recent findings highlight these ongoing vulnerabilities.
Adopting principles of Zero Trust is vital for addressing human errors and vulnerabilities, because it continuously verifies every user and device, reducing reliance on inherently trusting internal users. It enforces strict access controls, limits the potential damage from human mistakes or malicious actions, and enriches monitoring to quickly detect and respond to suspicious activities, thereby mitigating risks associated with human behavior.
While it goes without saying these attacks had a significant impact on humans, enterprise data was arguably the biggest victim over the time period covered. Whether data was encrypted and held ransom at the hands of extortionists, lost in phishing attacks (of which there were many), or stolen thanks to legacy VPN technologies being exploited, data loss was one of the most common denominators throughout the entire report.
It serves as another stark reminder of the importance of taking a data-centric approach to security. After all, cybersecurity is fundamentally a data problem. Across the email vectors predominantly targeted in phishing attacks, the cloud assets that hold increasingly more data, and the internal data scattered across enterprise environments, having data consistently identified, classified, and protected wherever it lives and goes is fundamental.
Looking at Verizon’s “Year in review” snapshot, high-profile attacks involving VPN products appeared several times. To quote Verizon themselves, “Anything that adds to your attack surface on the internet can be targeted and potentially be the first foothold for an external threat actor, and as such, the focus should be to try to keep footholds to a minimum.”
This, again, reinforces the ongoing push from industry and security thought-leaders to adopt principles of Zero Trust. Here are a few reasons why:
Verizon’s annual Data Breach Investigation Reports are always welcome, as they continue to shine light on globally prevalent threats, risks, and vulnerabilities continuing to plague organizations of all shapes and sizes the world over.
There is always the hope that organizations take heed of these insights to tighten their security regimes. The reality, however, is that many of the more common, recurring themes of phishing, social engineering, and lateral movement attacks continue to appear in quite striking quantities.
As mentioned, we thoroughly encourage taking a data-centric approach to security by focusing on the protection of your data — wherever it’s used, by whichever device, through whatever means of connectivity and collaboration, and from any location. Prioritizing the protection of data will ultimately support organizations in mitigating many of the threats and risks highlighted in Verizon’s reporting.
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