Key Takeaways – Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigation Report

What are some of the key takeaways from the Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report?

Verizon published its annual Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) this past week. It’s one of the most popular reports in the cybersecurity community as it provides a detailed analysis of real-world incidents.

This year’s edition profiled more than 16,000 security incidents and 2,500 breaches, providing insight into some of the leading causes, financial impacts and trends.

The complete online report is available here, with our key takeaways below.

Business Email Compromise is Growing (BEC)

BEC attacks continue to increase and now represent more than 50% of social engineering attacks. This is nearly double the amount of last year’s DBIR report and is no surprise as BEC attacks offer significantly larger payouts with less effort than ransomware attacks.  

Social Engineering on the Rise

Social engineering incidents have increased since last year and 50% of these are pretexting incidents, which are commonly used in BEC attacks. In addition to an increase in incidents, the median amount stolen from these attacks has increased to $50,000.

Ransomware Stays the Same

While ransomware remains a popular tactic among threat actors, the actual share of breaches involving ransomware stayed steady from last year at 24%, although the median cost of a ransomware attack increased to $26,000. This doesn’t necessarily mean that ransomware attacks are the on decline, but rather that threat actors are evolving attack methods to combat new security technology.

Money is the Motive

While this is no surprise to anybody, 95% of breaches are financially driven. One interesting note this year is the significant rise in breaches involving cryptocurrency. The DBIR recorded a fourfold increase in breaches involving cryptocurrency. It will be interesting to see where this number lands next year.

Threat Actors

External threat actors were responsible for 83% of breaches, which is in line with past DBIR reports and commonplace knowledge in any cybersecurity discussion. Internal actors came in second at 19% and partners (third parties) at 8%.  it is important to note that internal actors include insider threats who act intentionally, as well as internal actors who simply make a mistake.

The People Problem

Speaking of internal actors, the human element is still a big problem as 74% of all breaches are attributed to human error, privilege misuse, stolen credentials or social engineering. This is why security education and awareness training are still crucial to securing your organization.

For more information, you can access the complete DBIR at https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/.

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