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A new Verizon report says financially motivated cybercrime accounted for 75 percent of all data breaches in the world in 2012, followed by state-affiliated cyber espionage activities at 20 percent.
The company analyzed 621 confirmed data breaches and more than 47,000 reported security incidents with help from 18 other organizations for the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, Verizon said Tuesday.
David Small, chief platform officer for Verizon’s enterprise solutions business, said the company compiled the report to raise awareness of cybercrime and to help enterprises and government agencies counter the problem.
In 2012, hacktivists shifted to tactics such as a distributed denial of service attack to disrupt or paralyze systems, resulting in a decrease in how much data was stolen.
Hacking was the leading breach vector, accounting for 52 percent of cases.
Fourteen percent of attacks involved insiders and 92 percent could be attributed to outsiders such as former employees, activist groups, organized crime, lone hackers or foreign government-sponsored organizations, the company said.
The report also says 76 percent of network intrusions resulted from weak or stolen credentials, 40 percent utilized malware, 35 percent involved physical harm and 29 percent incorporated phishing and other social tactics.
