Insurer Beazley has said that during the first six months of this year ransomware attacks increased by 50% when compared with the previous year, with accidental breaches also continuing to drive a significant volume of losses.
The insurer has released its H1 2017 Beazley Breach Insight report, which, based on its customers data shows that hacking and malware attacks, which includes ransomware attacks, accounted for 32% of the total 1,330 incidents recorded by the Beazley Breach Response Services.
This is up 50% on the first-half of 2016, says Beazley, highlighting how attacks like this continue to drive the majority of losses.
This was followed by accidental breaches which accounted for 30% of all breaches during the first-half of 2017, which increased to 42% when considering just the healthcare sector.
“This continuing high level of accidental data breaches suggests that organizations are still failing to put in place the robust measures needed to safeguard client data and confidentiality. Since 2014, the number of accidental breaches reported to Beazley’s Breach Response team has shown no sign of diminishing. As more stringent regulatory environments become the norm, this failure to act puts organizations at greater risk of regulatory sanctions and financial penalties,” explains Beazley.
By sector, unintended disclosure accounted for 26% of breaches in H1 2017 in the educational sector, which is down on the 28% for the same period last year. In the higher education sector, hacks and malware accounted for roughly 43% of all breaches, which is roughly in line with the 45% recorded last year.
In the financial services sector hacks and malware accounted for just 37% of breaches compared with 46% a year earlier, and unintended disclosure accounted for 29% of all breaches in the space, up from 25% a year earlier.
Professional services firms reported that unintended breaches accounted for 14% of all breaches, which is higher than the 9% reported a year earlier. Hacking and malware accounted for 44% of all breaches in the sector, which is down from 52% a year earlier.
Katherine Keefe, global head of BBR Services, said; “Unintended breaches account for one-third of all data breach incidents reported to Beazley and show no signs of abating. They are a persistent threat and expose organizations to greater risks of regulatory sanctions and financial penalties. Yet, they can be much more easily controlled and mitigated than external threats. We urge organizations not to ignore this significant risk and to put more robust systems and procedures in place.”
