Financial Gain Trumps Espionage as Top Motivator in Cyber Attacks: Report

About nine out of 10 breaches were financially motivated, based on an examination of more than 32,000 incidents and nearly 4,000 confirmed break-ins.

By Reuters | Updated: 19 May 2020 19:09 IST

Financial Gain Trumps Espionage as Top Motivator in Cyber Attacks: Report

Some companies have extended working remotely to at least the rest of the year

Highlights

The report included 32,000 incidents and nearly 4,000 confirmed break-ins
The data was taken from 81 countries
Nine out of ten breaches were financially motivated

Money trumped spying as the top motivator for data breaches last year, according to Verizon's annual report on cybercrimes published on Tuesday.

About nine out of 10 breaches were financially motivated, based on an examination of more than 32,000 incidents and nearly 4,000 confirmed break-ins in 81 countries, the report said.

Verizon Business 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report found that confirmed data breaches doubled from the prior year. As the coronavirus pandemic has forced people indoors, cyber attacks on businesses are expected to climb.

The report found that 86 percent of breaches were for money, not for purposes of spying. Credential theft, phishing and compromising business emails caused 67 percent of the cyber attacks.

As more businesses moved to web-based solutions, so did hackers. According to the report, breaches on web and cloud applications rose to 43 percent, double the previous year.

Companies like Facebook and Salesforce have extended working remotely to at least the rest of the year, with more businesses expected to follow suit. Verizon Business Group CEO Tami Erwin said the "digital transformation" to the work-from-home model during the coronavirus pandemic has presented a number of security red flags.

"A lot of people ended up sending workers to work from home without really thinking through what were some of the security elements in the future," Erwin told Reuters. "I think employees working from home are probably more vulnerable to attacks."

Erwin said businesses can protect themselves from cyber attacks by keeping employees educated on phishing and other fraudulent tactics to access sensitive information.

© Thomson Reuters 2020

Which is the bestselling Vivo smartphone in India? Why has Vivo not been making premium phones? We interviewed Vivo's director of brand strategy Nipun Marya to find out, and to talk about the company's strategy in India going forward. We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.