Data security spending at record levels but costly breaches continue
A new report from Fortinet reveals that despite organizations increasing their data security budgets by 72 percent last year, insider-driven data incidents continue to surge, with 77 percent of companies experiencing at least one breach in the past 18 months.
The study, conducted with Cybersecurity Insiders, exposes a critical disconnect, while security leaders are adopting smarter strategies and securing stronger funding, traditional data loss prevention (DLP) tools are failing to protect against today's sophisticated threats in cloud-heavy, distributed work environments.
Concealing cyberattacks risks penalties and harms trust
Last month Bitdefender revealed that 70 percent of UK CISO have faced pressure to conceal security incidents, cyberattacks and breaches.
But compliance training specialist Skillcast is warning that this could risk regulatory penalties and erode trust. The concern is heightened by escalating threats, with 612,000 UK businesses and 61,000 UK charities reporting a cyber breach or attack in the past year, with the average cost of the most disruptive breach reaching £3,550 ($4,790) for businesses and £8,690 ($11,730) for charities.
Insecure code is behind a wave of data breaches
New research reveals that insecure code is behind a shocking number of cyber breaches in the UK, with two-thirds of tech leaders admitting their organization suffered an incident in the past year.
The study from SecureFlag, of 100 UK C-suite and tech leaders, shows that despite the risks, many companies are still failing to train developers properly, leaving a gap that attackers are exploiting.
Insider threats are getting costlier and harder to detect
A recent study from IBM revealed that insider threats were the costliest data breaches of 2024, averaging $4.99 million per incident.
Andrius Buinovskis, cybersecurity expert at security platform NordLayer, says that as more companies adopt a browser-first approach, mitigating insider threats will become even more challenging because of the limited visibility security administrators have into employee activity taking place within the browser.
What last year's biggest data breaches have taught us about authentication [Q&A]
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) there were 1.1 billion breaches in the first half of 2024 -- a 490 percent increase over the first half of the year before.
In addition, an enormous and unprecedented rate of credential stuffing and bot attacks have been spearheaded by ChatGPT's debut. All of this means having intelligent and accurate fraud prevention techniques have never been so critical.
60 percent of healthcare organizations unprotected against a second major data breach
Inconsistent adoption of DMARC standards is leaving 60 percent of US healthcare organizations that have already reported breaches exposed to a second attack.
The study from Red Sift looks at breaches reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during 2023-2024 shows that of 101 companies analyzed, 61 percent remain unprotected, with 33 having no DMARC policy and 28 lacking any data on DMARC.
Data breaches in UK legal sector up over a third
Analysis by NetDocuments of information collected by the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) reveals a sharp increase in data breaches across the UK legal sector.
The report shows that in the period between Q3 2023 and Q2 2024, the number of identified data breaches in the UK legal sector rose by 39 percent (2,284 cases were reported to the ICO, compared to 1,633 the previous year).
Software-as-a-Service breaches surge 300 percent
A new report from Obsidian Security reveals an unprecedented 300 percent year-on-year increase in SaaS breaches between September 2023 and 2024.
This surge comes as organizations increasingly rely on SaaS applications with current spend on SaaS in the hundreds of billions, or approximately $8,700 per employee for tools such as Workday, Google Workspace, ServiceNow, and Office 365.
Over 195 million records breached in ransomware attacks last year
In 2024, ransomware groups claimed responsibility for 5,461 successful ransomware attacks on organizations worldwide. Of these 1,204 were confirmed by the targeted organizations, according to analysis by Comparitech.
Across the 1,204 confirmed attacks, 195.4 million records have been breached. These figures for 2024 are lower than those recorded in 2023 (1,474 attacks affecting 261.5 million records), though they are expected to rise as reports often come in months later.
Data breach trends -- progress, challenges, and what's next [Q&A]
Despite organizations putting in place better security controls the pace of data breaches shows no signs of slowing down.
We spoke to Jon Fielding, managing director, EMEA at Apricorn, to discuss the latest data breach trends, the progress that's been made and where more work is needed to address security threats.
Over 80 percent of organizations affected by supply chain cyber breaches
A new report from cyber defense company BlueVoyant finds that 81 percent of organizations report they were negatively impacted by a cybersecurity breach within their supply chain over the past twelve months.
Although there has been a promising 17 percentage point year-on year increase (from 19 percent to 36 percent) in respondents reporting they working with third parties at every step to resolve issues, the process remains challenging.
Enterprise CISOs worry about losing their job after a breach
A new survey, which polled 200 CISOs from companies with annual revenues exceeding $500 million, highlights growing concerns across a number of areas.
The study from Portnox finds worries around the effectiveness of zero trust, the limitations of multi-factor authentication (MFA), and a looming threat to job security amidst an increasingly complex cybersecurity landscape.
Almost 90 percent of organizations suffered security incidents in the last three years
A new report shows 89 percent of organizations suffered at least one security incident in the past three years. 52 percent experienced at least four, and 24 percent were victims of an extraordinary 11 incidents.
The 2024 Secure Infrastructure Access from Teleport surveyed 250 senior US and UK decision-makers, assessing enterprise performance in infrastructure access security, dividing respondents into three groups based on a number of factors.
Average cost of industrial data breaches soars
In 2024, the average cost of a data breach skyrocketed to $4.88 million, up from $4.45 million in 2023, showing a 10 percent spike and the highest increase since the pandemic.
Some industries though have seen even bigger increases. Data from a Stocklytics survey of 604 organizations across 17 industries and in 16 countries between March 2023 and February 2024 shows the industrial sector has seen the biggest data breach cost growth in the past year.
Compliance failings leave enterprises vulnerable to data breaches
A new report from Thales reveals that 43 percent of enterprises failed a compliance audit last year, with those companies 10 times more likely to suffer a data breach.
Based on a survey of almost 3,000 IT and security professionals it also finds that 93 percent of IT professionals believe security threats are increasing in volume or severity, a significant rise from 47 percent last year.
Recent Headlines
BetaNews, your source for breaking tech news, reviews, and in-depth reporting since 1998.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.