Cyber-Attacks Continue

With the growing list of companies, people and even nations suffering the loss of private, confidential and valuable information, it’s plain that cyber-attacks continue to evolve in nature and severity. The recent system break-in at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in which an estimated 21.5 million personal background records were stolen, is only the latest mega-breach in the news. In fact, the competition between hackers and security technologies is heating up, making businesses work twice as hard to keep sensitive, corporate and personal information safe. All the while, enterprises continue to expand their online presence and add to their IT systems, providing even more potential attack surfaces for hackers to hit. This eWEEK slide show, with security startup Vera, Juniper Research, Ponemon Institute, IBM and SafeNet as resources, outlines several ways cyber-attacks are evolving and pinpoints contributing factors of which businesses and chief information security officers (CISOs) need to be aware in a world where the corporate perimeter is becoming obsolete.

Cyber-Attacks Continue

According to Juniper Research, data breach costs are forecast to increase beyond $2 trillion globally by 2019—nearly four times the estimated cost of breaches this year. Separate research from IBM and the Ponemon Institute sets the average cost of each data breach at $6.5 million. In considering what factors are at play, Juniper concludes the anticipated jump in data breach costs is attributed to fewer overall attacks on enterprises but more sophisticated and successful attacks on enterprise infrastructure. Among the hardest-hit industries are the banking and financial sectors, along with health care.

Cyber-Attacks Continue