Ransomware, Phishing, Human Errors on the Rise, New Verizon Report Shows

How Proactive Organizations Can Take Action

Often, when we think of security incidents such as data breaches, we think of ominous thieves lurking in a basement at their computer, breaking into companies, launching malware and freezing systems, then stealing sensitive data such as company secrets, financials, patents, employees’ and customers’ personally identifiable information (PII), and other sensitive information. While it’s easy to imagine, we don't know that cyber thieves are actually working out of their basements — the truth is scarier and more professional. According to the recent 2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), “most data thieves are professional criminals deliberately trying to steal information that they can turn into cash.” according to the recent 2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). The Verizon report confirms that data compromises are “considerably more likely to result from external attacks than from any other source.” In fact, three out of four cases point to outside the victim’s organization.

Not all security incidents are the makings of heist movies, although most incidents and data breaches can cause an organization great damage and loss. Fortunately, there are steps organizations can take to minimize or prevent the risks, especially since 82% of data breaches involved the human element, according to the report.

Ransomware: Upward Trend

Ransomware is in the news headlines lately, and for good reason. The Verizon report finds that ransomware has continued its upward trend with an almost 13% increase — a rise as much as the last five years combined. In fact, nearly one fourth of all data breaches examined involved ransomware. TechTarget’s Arlette Waldman says that ransomware gangs continue to ravage enterprises and public sector entities. “Whether data is exposed or not, the real damage from ransomware comes from the disruption of victims’ business operations” and has evolved into an ideal attack for cybercriminals looking to earn illicit revenue.

With ransomware, thieves are looking to interrupt the organizations’ critical functions by encrypting the data (locking it) with the intention of selling it back to the victim for a profit. According to Verizon, attackers use stolen credentials and phishing techniques to exploit vulnerabilities to compromise an organization’s network.

Employee Errors Lead to Data Breaches

Human error makes it oh-so-much easier for data thieves. “Criminals prefer human fallibility to code flaws,” writes CPO Magazine. Employees tend to fall for phishing scams because thieves are able to gather vast amounts of personal information from social media and the dark web, so they can customize and target an email that is very real sounding and clickable. In fact, the report finds that 35% of successful ransomware attacks involved email.

“Attacks are becoming more sophisticated because there is so much information about ourselves online now. The attacker knows more about their target than the target knows about the attacker and they’ll use that asymmetry to craft more targeted attacks and make their targets like them and trust them more,” states Jeff Hancock, professor of communication at Stanford University in a Business Leader article on how phishing is on the rise. According to Tessian’s 2022 Psychology of Human Error report, 52% of employees have admitted to falling victim to a business email compromise (BEC) attack.

“Security leaders need to create a culture that builds trust and confidence among employees and improves security behaviors, by providing people with the support and information they need to make safe decisions at work,” recommends Josh Yavor, chief information security officer at Tessian.

Roger Grimes, data evangelist, contends that social engineering is underlooked. “It is imperative to educate people about misconfiguration errors, misses in patching, stolen credentials and just regular errors, such as when a user accidentally emails the wrong person data.”

5 Ways Organizations Can Take Action to Minimize Ransomware

There are many preventive steps organizations can take to reduce ransomware risks and empower their employees to take back control of their privacy:

1. Look into privacy protection partners who can help you improve employee privacy and security awareness, mitigate data breach risks, and increase preparation.

2. Look into breach response partners before you’re in panic mode.

3. Consider pre-breach incident response planning. IDX, for example, offers breach response services for every state of a data breach without any initial cost. This ensures your organization is fully protected and you only incur costs when you require our data breach services. Read more here.

4. Implement privacy and security awareness education for employees, including using a password manager.

5. Keep your employees safer online with IDX’s privacy protection platform and ForgetMe data removal, which scans over 100 data broker websites to see who is selling your personal information online.

“Three decades of trying to fix cybersecurity issues by focusing on everything but the human element has shown that it is not a workable strategy. Both technological fixes and better security awareness education is needed to best mitigate cybersecurity attacks,” states Grimes.

Instead of “batten down the hatches,” it’s more like “increase employee awareness.” Adds IDX CEO, Tom Kelly, “If you go out somewhere, you're alert to your surroundings — in the digital world, be just as alert and do the obvious things that reduce risk.” With an almost 30% increase in stolen credentials since 2017 plus an increase in human fallibility, requires a combination of technology and human solutions — including preparedness and privacy tools — for an effective cybersecurity strategy.