Cyber Crime Continues To Climb, With Financial Gain The Main Objective

Cyber crime continues to soar, according to a new report from Verizon Business.

A record 157,525 incidents and 108,069 breaches were analyzed from 81 countries covering 16 industries between Nov. 1, 2018 and Oct. 31, 2019. Of those, 32,002 were security incidents, while 3,950 were confirmed breaches.

Money -- not espionage -- was the main goal of these incidents: 86% of data breaches were intended for financial gain, up from 71% in 2019.

This comes as the number of people working at home has sharply increased.

“As remote working surges in the face of the global pandemic, end-to-end security from the cloud to employee laptops becomes paramount," states Tami Erwin, chief executive officer of Verizon Business.

The Verizon report says 70% of breaches this year were caused by outsiders. Credential theft and social attacks -- from phishing and business email compromise and errors -- were the cause of the majority of breaches, at more than 67%.

The report says the incidence of web application attacks doubled, to comprise 43% of the incidents.

Breaches intended for the pursuit of financial gain accounted for 91% of cases in North America, with 70% of cases in Europe, Middle East and Africa and 63% in Asia-Pacific.

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