49 percent of data breaches in the so-called EMEA region have an internal cause, Verizon says in a new analysis of security incidents in 2024. That number is many times higher than in other regions of the world.
Verizon analyzed security incidents that occurred between November 1, 2022 and October 31, 2023 for its Data Breach Investigations Report. In the EMEA region, which includes Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the company analyzed 8,302 incidents, of which 6,005 included a confirmed data breach.
It is striking that many more incidents have an internal cause. Worldwide this is now 35 percent, while a year earlier it was 20 percent. Such an insider threat involves problems caused by full-time employees, contractors, interns and other personnel. Such people are trusted and often have privileges, which can be abused.
Verizon emphasizes that the majority of these incidents, 73 percent, are the result of human error. For example, it often happens that something is sent to the wrong person, which was the case with 50 percent of all human errors. Misconfigurations are also common: one in ten human errors involved such a problem.
Internal threats are common, especially in the EMEA region, often as a result of human error. There, 49 percent of incidents are the result of an internal cause, while in the Asian region this is only 2 percent and in North America only 8 percent. Verizon notes in its report that there are new participants in the research in this region and that strict rules apply here regarding reporting a data breach. This may have skewed the results slightly, Verizon says. Next year it should be clearer whether the trend around internal threats due to various errors will continue, or whether it was a one-off jump.
Tags: Verizon security incidents Europe internal Computer News
