Beazley Breach Response Services publishes latest annual report
Business email compromises (BEC) accounted for 24% of the overall number of incidents reported to Beazley Breach Response (BBR) Services in 2018, compared to 13% in 2017, according to a new report published today by Beazley.
The latest Beazley Breach Briefing, based on information gleaned from investigations into more than 3,300 data incidents in 2018, takes an in-depth look at how the common breaches are perpetrated, and how businesses can deal with them.
Almost half (47%) of all incidents investigated by BBR Services in 2018 were the result of a hack or malware. Of these, approximately half were BEC. These are social engineering attacks in which a cybercriminal uses compromised email credentials or spoofs a legitimate email address. They use it to try to trick an employee into making an electronic payment to a bank account controlled by the cybercriminal or, in some cases, to transfer sensitive data.
Businesses can prevent emails from being compromised by taking the following precautions:
Data on the thousands of cyber breaches handled by BBR Services in 2018 and detailed information on the types of risks and how to defend against them can be found in the latest Beazley Breach Briefing.
This report includes findings and analysis of Beazley data on BEC, banking Trojans and ransomware, which all increased in 2018.
Katherine Keefe, global head of BBR Services at Beazley, said: “The threat posed by cyber criminals continues to grow in complexity as they devise new techniques to breach IT security and trick unsuspecting employees into allowing them access to systems. By handling thousands of data breaches every year, BBR Services is able to shine a light on where the new and emerging cyber threats are coming from and help businesses to better understand and prepare for a breach.”
“Unfortunately, we see these threats globally across all sectors and we strongly believe that education about the risks and preparedness are as important as IT security measures for protecting individuals and assets from cyber attacks.”
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