ForgeRock’s latest report confirms healthcare is the most attacked sector with data breaches costing healthcare organizations over $2.45 billion
ForgeRock’s Opens a new window latest Consumer Identity Breach Report is a glaring sign of poor Identity and Access Management measures that is costing billions of dollars to organizations. The report highlights breaches have surged exponentially, both in actual numbers and costs with the healthcare sector clinching the title of the most targeted industry in 2019, accounting for 382 breaches and costing over $2.45 billion.
Technology firms reported the highest number of records compromised from breaches with over 1.37 billion exposed. Over the last two years, breaches set back U.S. organizations by $1.8 trillion. Unauthorized access is the biggest contributor in data breaches, underscoring the need for robust identity management and access (IAM) systems.
“Our data breach report showed that in 2019 over five billion consumer data records were stolen, and this almost doubles what were stolen in the previous year. That cost enterprises $1.2 trillion dollars.
The main problem in the internet today is an identity problem. According to the study, the main attack leading to data breaches last year was unauthorized access (40%). This means that cyber criminals were getting into users’ accounts with previously stolen usernames and passwords or other personal data about them.
In this time of the coronavirus and people starting new relationships with new service providers because they’ve been doing new things from home, look at it as an opportunity to shore up your strength and methods of protection. You can turn over a new leaf and make sure that you turn on these new, stronger methods of protection and look for ways of doing it in a convenient fashion with service providers that you trust.†shared Eve Maler, CTO, ForgeRock, exclusively with Toolbox.
Here are the key findings from the survey:
1. Records Affected: 2020 surpasses 2019 in terms of records breached
92 data breaches impacted 1.6 billion records in Q1 2020 alone, almost 9% more records than Q1 2019.
2. Attack Type: Unauthorized access is the top culprit
Unauthorized access is the contributor in data breaches, spotlighting why IAM should be the primary perimeter for security.
3. Attacks by Industry: Healthcare the most attacked sector
Healthcare industry has been at the receiving end of data breaches, both in 2019 and Q1 2020. Increase in attacks on healthcare in 2020 suggest the excessive strain wrought on by COVID-19.
Poor password hygiene impacts organizations
A recent study at Carnegie Mellon University spotlights the complacent behaviour of users across multiple platforms pertaining to the possibility of their data being breached in recent years.
Norton reportedOpens a new window that more than 4 billion records may have been breached in 2019, while ForgeRock’s latest report suggests the number to be nearly 5 billion, including email ID and corresponding passwords, which is a good enough reason to suspect that your credentials may be one of those that were exposed.
Despite this alarming figure, the study conducted by Lujo Bauer, Sruti Bhagavatula and Apu Kapadia suggests that only one in three people changed their passwords in the event of exposure. It further went on to say that more often than not, the new passwords were even weaker than the previous ones.
The study was conducted on 249 participants, whose daily computing habits and behaviour was regularly observed. Stating the need for a greater organizational approachOpens a new window in response to data breaches, Sruti Bhagavatula, Co-Author of the study and PhD Student under Prof. Lujo Bauer at School of Computer Science and CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University added, “Companies need to make it clear that even if users change the password on their site, they’re still vulnerable on other sites if similar passwords are being usedâ€.
Let us know if you liked this news on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!