Most cybersecurity breaches are the result of phishing and business email attacks. However, in healthcare, basic human error accounted for 31 percent of breaches last year, according to Verizon's recent report.
For its Business 2020 Data Breach Investigations report, Verizon examined data breaches from various industries, including healthcare, the public sector and financial and insurance.
Three report insights:
1. Basic human error accounted for 31 percent of healthcare breaches. Error falls into two main categories: someone sends an email to the wrong address or the organization sends out a mass mailing and envelopes with the addresses become out of sync with contents of the mail.
2. External threat actors made up 51 percent of breaches, followed by internal actors accounting for 48 percent. External actors increased from 42 percent in 2018 and internal actors decreased from 59 percent.
3. Privilege misuse dropped from 23 percent of attacks in 2018 to 8.7 percent the following year.