Organized crime leads to soaring data breaches

Organized crime leads to soaring data breaches

Employing sophisticated tools such as memory-scraping malware and unique packet sniffers, organized crime led a record assault on databases in 2008, resulting in more electronic records being compromised last year than the previous four years combined.
Organized crime successfully cranked up its data breaching efforts in 2008, and it paid off: More electronic records were breached last year than the previous four years combined, according to a new report from Verizon Business Security. The primary target of the thieves was the financial services industry, accounting for 93 percent of all such records compromised last year.
The second annual report from Verizon Business was based on data analyzed from the company’s investigative response team, which found 285 million compromised records from 90 confirmed breaches. More than 90 percent of the thefts involved groups identified by law enforcement as engaged in organized crime.
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