Verizon has published its annual report on data breach investigations, which is a study that’s conducted by Verizon’s own RISK team in conjunction with the U.S. Secret Service and the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit. The body of the report consists of approximately 70 pages of analysis, starting with an overview of the threat events in 2010 and discussion of threat agents and threat actions, and an examination of how it came about that 2010 saw an all-time low amount of data loss at the same time there was an all-time record high in number of incidents investigated. It was interesting to read about the huge increase in data breaches that stemmed from outsiders vs. internal threats, as well as the decrease in breaches that involved social engineering or privilege misuse and the increase in those that involved hacking, malware and physical attacks.
All in all, it’s well worth reading. You can download the entire report as a PDF here:
http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resources/reports/rp_data-breach-investigations-report-2011_en_xg.pdf