Financial and Insurance
NAICS 52

In 2016 servers were involved in 50% of Financial breaches, as opposed to 90% currently. However, the specific variety of “Server – Web application” has increased from 12% to 51% over that same timeframe. Thus, accounting for Basic Web application Attacks’ position in the top three patterns. A key component of these attacks is that they usually involve the Use of stolen credentials, which is the number one Action variety in this vertical. These creds may have been obtained in any number of ways, but brute force hacking and credential stuffing are the most likely culprits. One thing is certain, stolen creds and web apps go together like peanut butter and chocolate. 

‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’

The Error variety of “Misdelivery” (16%) is the second most common action variety in this vertical. Misdelivery is exactly what it sounds like, delivering PII or other sensitive information to the wrong recipient. One might expect to see that variety more often in Public Sector or Healthcare because, by their very nature, they send a great deal of mail. Instead, our data indicates that Misdelivery is approximately three times higher in Financial than in the other industries. We here on the DBIR team were taken aback by this finding, as it would be embarrassing if any unauthorized person were to view our checks and learn that we make countless millions for writing this report each year²⁶. 

‘Through the years…’

System Intrusion has doubled from 14% in 2016 to 30% this year. Organized crime was responsible for only 49% of breaches in 2018 vs the 79% we see in this report. Availability was affected in only 6% of breaches back in 2016, vs 14% today, and the discovery method of Actor disclosure was 5% (in 2016) as opposed to the 58% in this year’s report. We need hardly say that this is mainly due to ransomware attacks, but to be on the safe side, we will say it anyway: 

Finally, we would be remiss if we did not mention that DoS attacks continue to be a huge problem and account for 58% of security incidents in this vertical. That is approximately twice as much as we see in the other industries.

²⁶ If only.