Verizon's 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report

Introduction

Employees are the most often cited cause of a successful cyberattack. (Socialnomics) There is no definitive single source that answers your question, but Verizon’s 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report revealed that 50% of all security breaches were caused by people inside the organization. (CNBC) In a more recent statistic indicated that over 90% of successful cyberattacks traced back to an employee who unintentionally gives away their system’s ID or access credentials. (Cision)

Overview

Research shows that companies become the victim of a cyberattack because they often focus too much on network security but fail to address the weakest link in their security chain. The weakest links tend to be their employees, contractors, vendors, and customers. (Cision). There was a 55% increase in spear phishing campaigns that targeted employees from 2014 to 2015. (Small Business Trends) Spear phishing is an easy, low cost, and most common method that cybercriminals use to steal access and other sensitive information from employees and other system users. In 2015, 43% of

(Small Business Trends)

Spear phishing begins with a cybercriminal sending a fake email that asks the potential victim to click a URL and enter information on a fake website created by the cybercriminal. When the employee enters the requested information, it gives the cybercriminal what is needed to breach the company’s security system. (Cision).

Worker negligence accounts for 30% of all cyberattacks where the employee delivered information to the wrong recipient or the improper disposal of personal or medical information. (CNBC) Another 20% of data breaches are related to insider misuse, for example, employee theft or profiting from company-owned data.