Security Bites 116: Investigating data breaches

According to a report this week from Verizon Business, risk factors for data breaches vary industry to industry and defy a "cookie cutter" approach to security, which is why Verizon has revisited an earlier report. The goal of both the new and the prior report is to offer detailed insight into how data breaches occur, so that companies can address the problems within their specific industry.

The June 2008 report spanned four years and included more than 500 forensic investigations involving 230 million compromised records. The new report uses that same data but drills down within four key industries: financial services, tech, retail, and food and beverage. The four constitute 82 percent of all the attacks in the original Verizon report.

Verizon found the attacks on the financial industry tend to be sophisticated. A majority come from outside hackers, although a healthy amount could also be attributed to insiders who have been granted access to the data. Retail and food and beverage, which includes restaurants and grocery stores, are the polar opposite. In both retail and food, less sophisticated attacks are used and are often the result of a compromised third-party vendor.

Bryan Sartin, co-author of the report and director of investigative response for Verizon Business security solutions, talks with CNET News' Robert Vamosi about some of the investigations Verizon has done into thefts by third parties, and the possible ties to organized crimes and terrorism.

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