Stealing personal information is much less of a target for cybercriminals these days than targeting corporate information. That’s the major conclusion of a new study from security firm McAfee and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
The report, titled Underground Economies, said cybercriminals have found that greater value exists in selling a corporation’s proprietary information and trade information than in using personal data from individuals. The corporate information includes company data, trade secrets, marketing plans, research and development findings, and, in some cases, source code.
Insiders, Outsiders
Cybercriminals, the report said, now prefer to sell a company’s proprietary information to competitors and foreign governments. “For example,” it said, “a company’s legal documents can fetch far more money than a list of customer credit cards.”
The study, a follow-up to a 2008 report called Unsecured Economies, surveyed more than 1,000 IT decision-makers in the U.S., U.K., Japan, China, India, Brazil and the Middle East.
Scott Aiken, vice president for cyber operations at SAIC, said “the distinction between insiders and outsiders is blurring.” He noted that attackers often steal valid network credentials and then infiltrate a network as an insider.
The report found that a quarter of the surveyed organizations had a tangible negative impact from being hacked, including the slowdown or end of a merger/acquisition or a product/solution rollout. Only half of the organizations that experienced a data breach took remedial steps to prevent future breaches, and about a quarter of global organizations are conducting risk assessment of their data only twice a year or less.
Half the surveyed organizations are investigating the costs and risks of processing data outside their home countries. A third are looking to increase the amount of sensitive information stored abroad, up from 20 percent two years ago.
Least Safe Countries
But three countries in particular are considered the least safe for data storage — China,…
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