The Verizon 2019 Data Breach investigations Report is Live

The Verizon 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report has been released today, and yet again offers exceptional, data-driven insights into cybercrime trends, and great advice on what organizations can do to effectively protect their business, their data, their customers – and their reputation.

A key finding of this year’s report was that C-level executives – who have access to a company’s most sensitive information, are now the major focus for social engineering attacks, with financial gain the key driver. Senior executives are 12x more likely to be the target of social incidents, and 9x more likely to be the target of social breaches than in previous years. And a successful pretexting attack can reap large dividends as a result of their - often unchallenged - approval authority, and privileged access into critical systems.

Today’s digital business environment is one which is ripe to be exploited by human error, so it’s not perhaps surprising that time-poor, busy executives are now a cybercrime target. We must all ensure we take our organization’s security seriously – educate our teams, ensure we apply commonsense, ensure we are doing security basics well, and make sure our overall security approach is flexible, smart, strategic and data-driven.

But there is a bigger picture to consider when looking at enterprise security today. Enterprises today are increasingly using edge-based applications to assemble and analyze critical – and often personal – data at eye-blink speed to deliver insights and experience. All enterprises today are host to a wealth of data that is ripe for exploitation, hosted in new applications and architectures that require a different approach to security.

Perhaps most importantly for me, now I know that I am a target for cybercrime, you can be sure that I will be paying much more attention to what comes into my inbox, and ensuring that my team does the same. And most importantly, we will be working to help our customers understand the threat landscape, and how they can best protect themselves as well. Knowledge is power, and sharing that power is a privilege we should all enjoy.

I would suggest that technical IT hygiene and network security are table stakes when it comes to reducing risk. You really need to work to understand the threat landscape and your organization’s risk posture, so you can develop and action a solid plan to protect your business against the reality of cybercrime. Verizon’s DBIR offers organizations large and small a comprehensive overview of the cyber threat landscape today so they can quickly develop effective defense strategies.

My team is already sharing insights from the 2019 DBIR with our customers across the globe. If you are interested in benefiting from our security experience and expertise for your own organization, please get in touch.