Spoof emails drive 147% increase in cyber breaches outside North America

Cyber breaches were up 147% outside North America last year, according to the latest figures from Beazley Breach Response Service (BBR). Most breaches (47%) were hack or malware incidents, up by 10% since 2017 and driven by a rise in compromised business emails and ransomware attacks, explained BBR. Healthcare recorded the highest number of breaches in 2018. The sector accounted for 41% of all incidents, followed by financial services at 20%. Healthcare continues to be plagued by accidental disclosure, which logged 31% of the sector’s breaches. Overall, accidental disclosure was the second highest cause of breach across all sectors at 20%, behind hacking. Hack or malware was the top cause of breach loss across most industries. They accounted for 59% of financial institution breaches and 59% of professional services. They were responsible for 50% in higher education and 67% in manufacturing. BBR said business email compromises logged 24% of all 3,300 incidents reported to BBR last year, up from 13% in 2017 and recording a 133% increase in one year. These incidents see cybercriminals use compromised email credentials, or spoof legitimate email addresses, to trick employees into making bank transfers. Beazley said the average cost of a business email compromise claim totalled almost $71,000, while the highest claim paid by Beazley last year topped $2.5m. Financial institutions recorded the highest number of business email compromise attacks at 27%, followed by healthcare at 22% and education at 12%. Helen Nuttall, international breach manager at Beazley, said: “As organisations move to cloud-based environments, there is a corresponding increase in attacks that are seeking to exploit existing vulnerabilities and persuade individuals to reveal their user credentials. Implementation of multi-factor authentication, strong passwords, and regular employee training are all critical steps to minimise this risk.” BBR said businesses should use multi-factor authentication to minimise the risk of business email compromise, alongside limiting the number of employees authorised to conduct wire transfers. It added that pre-set codes can be used to confirm authorised employee requests for fund transfers. Additional checks should be initiated if a vendor requests changes to the bank account details, BBR added. Ransomware accounted for 9% of hack- and malware-type breaches in 2018, BBR said. Ransom demands ran as high as $8.5m for one Beazley client. But the firm restored its systems from backups without paying the ransom. The highest ransom payment agreed by Beazley last year was just under $1m, after a construction firm in the US and Mexico was hit by a ransomware attack that deleted its systems and backups. As well as meeting almost $900,000 of the ransom payment, Beazley also received a claim for more than $1m in data recovery and business interruption costs. BBR said small and medium-sized businesses are running a higher risk of ransomware attack, as their resources are more limited and fewer small businesses lockdown Remote Desktop Protocol. Last year, 71% of ransomware incidents reported to Beazley were against small firms. BBR said all industries are at risk of ransomware attack, with healthcare recording the majority of incidents at 34% followed by professional services and financial services at 12% each. In related news, Norwegian aluminium manufacturer Norsk Hydro has found a cure for the cyberattack that disrupted its operations last week and flown in Microsoft experts to help restore critical systems.

Spoof emails drive 147% increase in cyber breaches outside North America

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