'Cyber espionage activity on rise; attacks becoming complexer'

Cases of cyber espionage have registered an over three-fold increase last year as criminals are employing more sophisticated and complex tools to hack data with regions like China still holding the top spot for such activities, a report by telecom major Verizon said.
According to Verizon's 2014 Data Breach investigations Report (DBiR), 2013 can also be termed at the year of retailer breach and can also be considered as the year of transition from geopolitical attacks to large-scale attacks on payment card systems.
The 2014 DBIR analyses over 1,300 confirmed data breaches and more than 63,000 reported security incidents from last year.

Cyber-espionage is up again in 2014 report, representing a more than three-fold increase compared with the 2013 report, with 511 incidents partially due to a bigger dataset. Besides, these attacks were found to be the most complex and diverse, with a long list of threat patterns, the report said.
"As it did last year, China still leads as the site of the most cyber espionage activity, but the other regions of the world are represented, including Eastern Europe with more than 20 per cent," it claims.
The report reveals that 2013 may be remembered as the 'year of the retailer breach'.

"But a comprehensive assessment suggests it was a year of transition from geopolitical attacks to large-scale attacks on payment card systems," it added.
Financially motivated attackers are hyper-focused on gaining access to the money, so it follows that their two primary target industries are the financial and retail industries (where data that easily converts to money is abundant and all too often, accessible).