According to data from Verizon’s 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report, the actual cost incurred by a breach can vary substantially depending on a business industry. One of the most significant factors is the type of data lost, which can be anything from payment card details to medical records.
Breaking down confirmed data breaches in 2014, the research shows that 96 percent of them related to nine attack patterns. The biggest percentage, namely 28.5 percent, were attacks involving point-of-sale (POS) systems. In 2013 and 2014 the US retail industry has been rocked by a number of high profile POS-based attacks on brands including Target, Home Depot, Neiman Marcus, White Lodging, Michaels and The UPS Store.
The study points out that the next biggest category of breaches, at 18.8 percent, involved crimeware. Crimeware was followed by cyber espionage (18 percent), insider misuse (10.6 percent), web applications (9.4 percent) and errors (8.1 percent).
As part of its research for the report, Verizon assessed the effectiveness of phishing emails. The report also included some insights about how attackers set up for a data breach. For example, Verizon analysed 150,000 phishing emails that were sent out.
Verizon analysed 200 global cyber liability insurance claims related to data breaches, looking at the cost per record starting from 100 records and going all the way up to 100 million records.
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