Verizon's Dave Hylender wrote that money-minded miscreants continued to cash in on low-hanging fruit from any tree within reach. Bolder bandits took aim at better-defended targets in hopes of bigger hauls. Activist groups DoS'd and hacked under the very different - and sometimes blurred - banners of personal ideology and just-for-the-fun-of-it lulz. And, as a growing list of victims shared their stories, clandestine activity attributed to state-affiliated actors stirred international intrigue, he said.
China was involved in 96 per cent of all espionage data-breach incidents, most often targeting manufacturing, professional and transportation industries. Hylender said that the assets China targeted within those industries included laptop/desktop, file server, mail server and directory server, in order to steal credentials, internal organization data, trade secrets and system info.
More than 95 per cent of the attacks started with phishing which had become much more sophisticated, often targeting specific individuals and using tactics that are harder for IT to control. Phishers are using phone calls and social networking, too, the report said.