Intelligent Tech Channels Issue 49 | Page 39

• The overall number of incidents has increased by a staggering 44 % in just two years . The frequency of incidents per company has also gone up with 67 % of companies experiencing between 21 and more than 40 incidents per year , up from 60 % in 2020 .
• The negligent insider is the root cause of most incidents . A high number ( 56 %) of reported insider threat incidents were the result of a careless employee or contractor , costing on average US $ 484,931 per incident . This could be the result of a variety of factors ,
Organisational insiders , including employees , contractors and third-party vendors , are an attractive attack vector for cybercriminals including not ensuring their devices are secured , not following the company ’ s security policy , or forgetting to patch and upgrade .
• Malicious or criminal insiders were behind one in four incidents ( 26 %) at an average cost per incident of US $ 648,062 . Malicious insiders are employees or authorised individuals who use their data access for harmful , unethical , or illegal activities . Malicious insiders are harder to detect than external attackers or hackers because employees are increasingly granted access to more information to enhance productivity in today ’ s work-fromanywhere workforce .
• Credential theft incidents have almost doubled since the last study . At an average of US $ 804,997 per incident , credential theft is the costliest to remediate . The intent of the credential thief is to steal users ’ credentials that will grant them access to critical
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS Issue 49 39