Thursday, December 10, 2009

285 Million Records Compromised in 2008 - New Verizon Business Report





According to a new report released yesterday from Verizon Business, keystroke loggers and spyware are the most commonly occurring attacks in companies that suffer major data breaches.



The report, "2009 Supplemental Data Breach Investigations Report: An Anatomy of a Data Breach," looks at the 15 most common security attacks (listed below)



1. Keylogging and spyware: Malware specifically designed to covertly collect, monitor, and log the actions of a system user.



2. Backdoor or command/control: Tools that provide remote access to or control of infected systems, or both, and are designed to run covertly.



3. SQL injection: An attack technique used to exploit how Web pages communicate with back-end databases.



4. Abuse of system access/privileges: Deliberate and malicious abuse of resources, access, or privileges granted to an individual by an organization.





5. Unauthorized access via default credentials: Instances in which an attacker gains access to a system or device protected by standard preset (widely known) usernames and passwords.



6. Violation of acceptable use and other policies: Accidental or purposeful disregard of acceptable use policies.



7. Unauthorized access via weak or misconfigured access control lists (ACLs): When ACLs are weak or misconfigured, attackers can access resources and perform actions not intended by the victim.



8. Packet sniffer: Monitors and captures data traversing a network.



9. Unauthorized access via stolen credentials: Instances in which an attacker gains access to a protected system or device using valid but stolen credentials.



10. Pretexting or social engineering: A social engineering technique in which the attacker invents a scenario to persuade, manipulate, or trick the target into performing an action or divulging information. 11. Authentication bypass: Circumvention of normal authentication mechanisms to gain unauthorized access to a system.



12. Physical theft of asset: Physically stealing an asset.



13. Brute-force attack: An automated process of iterating through possible username/password combinations until one is successful.



14. RAM scraper: A fairly new form of malware designed to capture data from volatile memory (RAM) within a system.



15. Phishing (and endless "ishing" variations): A social engineering technique in which an attacker uses fraudulent electronic communications (usually email) to lure the recipient into divulging information.





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