Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report (10th year of publication) uncovers the latest trends in cybersecurity: who is attacking whom and how. The research highlights how human error and vulnerability are some of the biggest benefits for cybercriminals. The 2017 DBIR reveals what’s really happening in cyber security. 

This year’s report is based on analysis of over 40,000 incidents, including 1,935 confirmed data breaches. 

Summary of results:

Source & Copyright©2017 - Verizon

The report analyses the overall dynamics of each type of breach and who is involved.

Verticals analysis

The report covers 21 industry verticals including accommodation, education, management, real-estate and utilities covering the types of breaches and ’Things to consider,’ e.g. For manufacturing it gives:


Source & Copyright©2017 - Verizon

Attack the humans

A theme that runs through all their analysis of cybersecurity breaches is that probably the weakest link is individuals in the organisation, in the process particularly in phishing. The conclude that someone will always click. 

Verizon recommend that companies: “Focus on detection and reporting of clicks rather than just prevention. Implement and test a phishing response plan that:

• Empowers users to alert on “phishy” emails.
• Identifies phishing recipients and recalls the email.
• Identifies phishing recipients who clicked the link or opened the attached file.
• Expires credentials accessed from compromised hosts.
• Investigates post-click communications from the infected hosts.
• Isolates the system so that the malware cannot spread.
• Identifies and removes the malware.
• Considers the use of sandboxing technologies, including operating systems that sandbox applications natively. Also discounts cloud applications that sandbox emails and Office documents from the user device.”

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CTMfile take: This report is full of tips on how to minimise cyber-security breaches in key industry verticals. Invaluable.