Verizon Report: Social Engineering Attacks on the Rise, Leading to Increased Frequency and Higher Costs of Data Breaches in 2023

Verizon Business has released its 16th annual Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), which analyzed over 16,000 security incidents and 5,000 breaches. The report highlights the soaring cost of ransomware, which has doubled in the past two years, with 95% of those that experienced a loss costing between $1 million and $2.25 million. Social engineering attacks, in which human nature is exploited, continue to be one of the most common ways to manipulate an organization’s sensitive information. 74% of total breaches are human-related, making it clear that enhancing the protection of senior leadership is crucial in preventing costly system intrusions. Senior leadership is among the least protected, as many organizations make security protocol exceptions for them. Social engineering remains a lucrative tool for cybercriminals, particularly the Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack method, where cybercriminals impersonate enterprise employees for financial gain. With the median amount stolen in BEC attacks increasing over the past few years to $50,000 USD, the report highlights enterprises with distributed workforces should create and strictly enforce human-centric security best practices. Finally, despite espionage gaining considerable media attention, only 3% of threat actors were motivated by espionage. The other 97% were motivated by financial gain.