The financial sector was once again the industry hit by the most data breaches last year, after relinquishing the top spot in 2022, according to a report from financial and risk advisory firm Kroll.
Kroll's 2024 Data Breach Outlook report also shows that social engineering attacks such as phishing scams are on the rise.
“The financial sector is an attractive target for cybercriminals, not just for immediate financial gain, but also because it holds a wealth of sensitive customer information,” it said in a statement published on February 7. The report covers 10 individual industries.
In addition to direct attacks on organizations, the report explains that potential third-party risks at various points in the supply chain and between organizations utilizing outsourcing are key threats.
The most high-profile attack cited in Kroll's report, and the one that pushed the financial sector back to the top, was the CL0P ransomware attack on Progress Software's data transfer platform MOVEit.
On May 27, Russian ransomware group CL0P injected instructions into the MOVEit code that allowed it to steal data from transfers made using MOVEit. Progress Software revealed that by June, he had discovered five more similar cyberattacks, also known as SQL injection vulnerabilities.
Financial institutions that used MOVEit's services discovered that some of their customers had been compromised after CL0P created a victim-shaming site.
“This type of activity and its impact highlights the vulnerability of an organization's interdependence and the extent of third-party risk,” said the report, authored by David White, Kroll's global head of breach notification. is written.
In total, nearly 1,000 institutions in the public and private sectors were affected by the CL0P-MOVEit attack, including major companies such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Deutsche Bank, as well as several U.S. government agencies. .
“The MOVEit vulnerability was a perfect example of the ripple effect a single attack can have on an ecosystem of connected companies,” the report states. “In fact, third-party risk has emerged as a key area of concern due to changes in threat actor behavior and priorities.”
The healthcare sector, which ranked first in 2022, moved to second last year, and third place belongs to professional services, which includes social engineering attacks such as phishing scams in which victims are tricked into providing sensitive information. According to the report, the most common scams involved fake business emails disguised as genuine.
The latest threats include: “As part of the rise of social engineering, business email compromises continue to grow steadily in popularity, with existing and new threat groups using a variety of tactics to access data and, in some cases, is demanding your information for ransom.” Also a landscape report from the crawl.
