This year's data breach report continues this valuable narrative.  This years report is based on a larger case sample than in previous years, thanks to a partnership with the United States Secret Service, who contributed information on a few hundred of their cases this year.  Many of the findings echo those of previous years (excerpts below).

Who is behind Data Breaches?
70% resulted from external agents
48% caused by insiders
11% implicated business partners
27% involved multiple parties

How do breaches occur?
48% involved privilege misuse
40% resulted from hacking
38% utilized malware
28% involved social tactics
15% comprised physical attacks

What commonalities exist? (this was the interesting section for me)
98% of all data breached came from servers
85% of attacks were not considered highly difficult
61% were discovered by a third party
86% of victims had evidence of the breach in their log files
96% of breaches were avoidable through simple or intermediate controls
79% of victims subject to PCI DSS had not achieved compliance

Come on!  Not only don't folks seem to be implementing some basic protections, but when they're told that they've been compromised (in their log files), no-one is listening!  I guess this isn't much different than in previous years, but it'd be nice to see a positive trend here.

I'm not sure that I believe the low numbers for government data breaches (4%).  I guess the report can only summarize data from cases that are "seen" by the incident handlers.

Find the full report here ==> http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resources/reports/rp_2010-data-breach-report_en_xg.pdf

Take a few minutes to read it over coffee this morning - I found it a good read, and just about the right length for that first cup !

=============== Rob VandenBrink, Metafore =====================