F-Secure’s new Incident Response Report points to email inboxes as the weakest link in security perimeters, and finds that companies struggle with quickly and accurately detecting security incidents

Helsinki, Finland – February 22, 2018 — /BackupReview.info/ — Over one-third of all security incidents start with phishing emails or malicious attachments sent to company employees, according to a new report published today by global cyber security company F-Secure. F-Secure’s new Incident Response Report summarizes findings from F-Secure’s incident response investigations and provides insights into how real hackers attack organizations.

The single most common source of breaches analyzed in the report was attackers exploiting vulnerabilities in an organization’s internet facing services, which accounted for about 21 percent of security incidents investigated by F-Secure’s incident responders. But phishing and emails with malicious attachments together accounted for about 34 percent of breaches, which F-Secure Principal Security Consultant Tom Van de Wiele says make attacks arriving via email a much bigger pain point for organizations.

“Exploiting software vulnerabilities in drive-by scenarios is typical in opportunistic attacks, but breaching companies via email is actually far more common. There’s a lot of different ways different attackers can use email, and these attacks are popular because almost every company relies on email for communication,” Van de Wiele said. “People need to think before they click on attachments and links, but the pressures of many jobs overrides this logic, which attackers understand and exploit.”

Other significant findings in the report include:

  • Organizations were hit by targeted and opportunistic attacks in nearly equal proportion to one another
  • Insider threats accounted for one-fifth of security incidents
  • Incident responders were contacted after the security perimeter was breached in nearly 80 percent of cases
  • The most common post-breach action taken by attackers was spreading malware (mostly for financial gain, but also for espionage or maintaining access for future purposes)
  • 13 percent of investigations turned out to be false alarms

According to Van de Wiele, the number of false alarms reported as security incidents is surprising, and shows that too many organizations struggle with accurately detecting cyber attacks. “We’re often called in to investigate ‘suspicious activity,’ which tells me that a lot of organizations don’t have accurate incident detection capabilities. Sometimes we’ll even investigate and discover an IT problem rather than an attack, which drains resources and distracts everyone from dealing with the real issue.”

The report recommends companies improve their incident detection and response capabilities, such as by investing in an endpoint detection and response solution or service.

More information

  • 3 Reasons why Companies Struggle with Incident Detection — https://business.f-secure.com/3-reasons-why-companies-struggle-with-incident-detection
  • F-Secure’s Incident Response and Forensic Services — https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/business_global/incident-response-and-forensics

About F-Secure
Nobody knows cyber security like F-Secure. For three decades, F-Secure has driven innovations in cyber security, defending tens of thousands of companies and millions of people. With unsurpassed experience in endpoint protection as well as detection and response, F-Secure shields enterprises and consumers against everything from advanced cyber attacks and data breaches to widespread ransomware infections. F-Secure’s sophisticated technology combines the power of machine learning with the human expertise of its world-renowned security labs for a singular approach called Live Security. F-Secure’s security experts have participated in more European cyber crime scene investigations than any other company in the market, and its products are sold all over the world by over 200 broadband and mobile operators and thousands of resellers.

Founded in 1988, F-Secure is listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd.

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F-Secure Media Relations
Adam Pilkey
+358 40 637 8859

Source: F-Secure

 

 

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