Verizon Communications Reports A Plunge In Data Losses From Cyber Crimes
Fresh off the heels of a large data breach that exposed the names and/or email addresses of Verizon customers, Verizon is now reporting that data losses from cyber crimes have taken a plunge.
Earlier this spring, a hacker successfully breached online marketer and one of the world's largest permission-based email marketing provider, Epsilon's email system. The breach, while large in scale, was limited strictly to names and email addresses, and thankfully no personal information (such as credit card information or social security numbers) was compromised.
While Verizon was one of the 50 companies affected by the hack, according to a recent report Verizon Communications is now reporting a significant drop in the amount of records lost as a result of cyber crimes. The report was collaborated and prepared by Verizon, the National High Tech Crime Unite of the Netherlands Policy Agency as well as the US Secret Service, and covers approximately 900 million compromised records from over 1,700 breaches that spanned a total of 7 years.
But don't get your hopes up quite yet there are cyber criminals still out there.
Verizon states that the total number of data breaches has plunged from 2009's staggering report of 144 million to roughly 4 million in 2010, and attributes the record high numbers to the ever- changing dynamic of cyber criminals and the recent drop in the amount of large-scale breaches. According to Verizon, the contradiction between the high number of beaches and low data loss is due to the fact that cyber criminals now opt to engage in "small, opportunistic attacks rather than large-scale, difficult attacks and are using relatively unsophisticated methods to successfully penetrate organizations."
The report found a record high number of data breaches, despite the fact that the number of compromised records involved in data breaches investigated by Verizon and the U.S. Secret Service plunged from 144 million in 2009 to about 4 million last year. Also noted in the report was that the most frequent types of attacks investigated were malware, accounting for 49% and hacking, accounting for 50%.
Vice president of Verizon's security and industry solutions, Peter Tippett, stated that despite the numerous attacks of all different types (including country-wide schemes involving device tampering, complex internal fraud rings, slow and low attacks, and prolific and automated external attacks) Verizon is using what they learn to improve future operations; "at the end of the day, we found once again that the vast majority of breaches can be avoided without extremely difficult, expensive security measures."
Earlier this spring, a hacker successfully breached online marketer and one of the world's largest permission-based email marketing provider, Epsilon's email system. The breach, while large in scale, was limited strictly to names and email addresses, and thankfully no personal information (such as credit card information or social security numbers) was compromised.
While Verizon was one of the 50 companies affected by the hack, according to a recent report Verizon Communications is now reporting a significant drop in the amount of records lost as a result of cyber crimes. The report was collaborated and prepared by Verizon, the National High Tech Crime Unite of the Netherlands Policy Agency as well as the US Secret Service, and covers approximately 900 million compromised records from over 1,700 breaches that spanned a total of 7 years.
But don't get your hopes up quite yet there are cyber criminals still out there.
Verizon states that the total number of data breaches has plunged from 2009's staggering report of 144 million to roughly 4 million in 2010, and attributes the record high numbers to the ever- changing dynamic of cyber criminals and the recent drop in the amount of large-scale breaches. According to Verizon, the contradiction between the high number of beaches and low data loss is due to the fact that cyber criminals now opt to engage in "small, opportunistic attacks rather than large-scale, difficult attacks and are using relatively unsophisticated methods to successfully penetrate organizations."
The report found a record high number of data breaches, despite the fact that the number of compromised records involved in data breaches investigated by Verizon and the U.S. Secret Service plunged from 144 million in 2009 to about 4 million last year. Also noted in the report was that the most frequent types of attacks investigated were malware, accounting for 49% and hacking, accounting for 50%.
Vice president of Verizon's security and industry solutions, Peter Tippett, stated that despite the numerous attacks of all different types (including country-wide schemes involving device tampering, complex internal fraud rings, slow and low attacks, and prolific and automated external attacks) Verizon is using what they learn to improve future operations; "at the end of the day, we found once again that the vast majority of breaches can be avoided without extremely difficult, expensive security measures."
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