Data breaches could be even more costly next year, says new Acronis report.
Based on data gathered from more than 750,000 unique endpoints spread around the world, the company’s report says the average cost of a data breach is expected to hit $5 million next year.
To make matters worse, researchers also expect a significant increase in the number of breaches. Threats from malicious and phishing emails have increased by 60% year-on-year.
New solutions for new attack methods
Moreover, the number of social engineering attacks has also increased in the last four months of the year and now accounts for around 3% of all attacks. Leakage or theft of passwords and other credentials accounted for nearly half of all reported cybersecurity incidents in the first half of 2022.
“The last few months have been as complex as ever, with new threats constantly emerging and malicious actors continuing to use the same proven scheme to obtain large payouts,” said Candid Wüest, vice president of Cybersecurity Research at Acronis.
“Organizations need to prioritize comprehensive solutions to reduce phishing and other hacking attempts in the new year. Attackers are constantly evolving their methods, now using common security tools against us – such as MFA, which many companies rely on to protect their employees and businesses.”
In the third quarter of the year, the percentage of phishing attacks compared to malware attacks increased 1.3 times and now accounts for more than three-quarters (76%) of all email attacks (up from 58% in the first half of the year). ).
Most of the victims were in the US, but companies in Germany and Brazil were also targeted. Endpoints in South Korea, Jordan and China were also the biggest malware targets.
Digging deeper into the different industries that cybercriminals targeted with phishing and malicious emails, researchers found construction, retail, real estate, professional services, and finance as the most targeted industries.