Web apps targeted by hackers amid 2013 cyber-espionage rise

Point-of-sale intrusions, cyber-espionage and attacks on web applications were the biggest threats to IT security in 2013, a Verizon report has revealed.
The majority of the attacks were financially motivated, while cyber-espionage, carried out by rogue hacking groups, is on the rise.
 
Verizon's report covered 1,367 breaches, as well as 63,437 incidents, that put a company's assets at risk. Victims from 95 countries were included, comprised law enforcement agencies, CERT teams, security companies and others.
Finance suffered the most in terms of confirmed breaches with 465, followed by the public sector (175), retail (148) and accommodation (137).
The use of stolen credentials ranks highest among the methods used by hackers in 2013, with 422 confirmed breaches. Behind that malware-based data mining, the use of RAM scrapers and backdoor software made up the rest.
 
 35 per cent of all breaches which resulted in data disclosure were web application attacks, fuelled by either ideological or financial motives. 
Ideological hackers, like the Syrian Electronic Army, tend to compromise the entire platform of an application, rather than dig for sensitive data. Conversely, financial hackers targeted bank accounts using phishing software.
 
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