On The Path Of Least Resistance

A new report shows that cyber "criminals are not hopelessly ahead in this game," as security experts from both in and outside government so often claim.

Actually, Verizon's 2010 Data Breach Investigations Report, which was conducted in partnership with the U.S. Secret Service, found that 85 percent of attacks were not considered highly difficult, and 96 percent of breaches were avoidable through simple or intermediate controls.

That said, though the proportion of breaches stemming from highly sophisticated attacks remained rather low, they still accounted for roughly nine out of ten records lost -- meaning the more sophisticated the attack, the more widespread the damage.

Organizations also remain sluggish in detecting and responding to incidents, with most breaches discovered by external parties, and only then after a considerable amount of time, according to the report.This is despite the fact that 86 percent of victims had evidence of the breach in their log files.