Healthcare In Top Spot For Various Data Violations

Healthcare saw the largest volume of data violations in 2015but, while malicious actors still hold an advantage, progress is being made according to IBM X-Force’s 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index. The yearly report reviews events of 2015 based on IBM Security Services’ operational and investigative data of billions of security events across more than 1,000 industries in 100 countries to give an interesting snapshot into the security “arms race” between adversaries and defenders.

The fact healthcare was thrust into the top spot for 2015 should be no surprise, offered IBM dubbed 2015 “The Year of the Healthcare Breach.”The 2016 IBM X-Force Cyber Security Intelligence Index offers a high-level overview of the huge threats to IBM client worldwide over the last year, giving a detailed look at the volume of attacks, the industries most affected, the most prevalent kinds of attacks and attackers, and the primary factors enabling them. Among the highlights of the report:

• Retail Drops Out Of Top 5; Industry Targets Shift
  Healthcare shifted into 1^st place as the most-attacked industry in the year 2015, followed by manufacturing, financial services, government, and transportation. Five of the eight greatest healthcare security breaches since the year 2010 occurred during the first six months of the year 2015, and over 100 million healthcare records were compromised in the year 2015.


• Extortion On The Rise
  The various breaches in the financial services industry that included extortion tactics or theft of currency rose by 80% in 2015, but ransomware is not limited to attacks on financial institutions as the recent attacks on Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital and others demonstrate.


• Analytics Significantly Decreased False Positives
  Better tools, tuning, and analytics are improving signal-to-noise ratio and sharpening focus. The mass of security events an average organization has to deal with dropped 35% from 81 million to 53 million yearly. At the similar time, our average client company experienced 1,157 attacks in the year 2015, down 90% from 12,017 the year before.


• Security Incidents Increased 64 Percent
  There were 178 security tragedies (the most serious of the three, requiring deeper investigation) in 2015, up 66% from 109 in the year 2014.


• Insiders Are Still A Big Problem
  60% (up from 55 percent) of attacks were initiated by insiders, of those 33% were carried out by inadvertent actors (down from 50 percent in 2014) A sign of change in worker education and security policies.