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"Hacktivists now dominate the world of data theft.\nThat\u2019s according to the latest annual report by the Verizon Risk team, which coordinates data from government online security agencies to paint a comprehensive picture of who\u2019s hacking and where.\nThe most striking finding is the sudden rise of hacktivists\u2014skilled hackers whose motives are political, rather than for material gain. Culling data from the Australian Federal Police, Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit, Irish Reporting &amp; Information Security Service, U.K.\u2019s Police Central e-Crime Unit, and the U.S. Secret Service, the Risk team found more attacks from activists in 2011 than in the past seven years combined.\nThe report drew a clear line between hacktivists and organized criminals who steal information for profit. The latter were responsible for most other hacking and scored the majority of data breaches, with 83%. Because criminals usually look to steal information that they can turn into cash, they often attack smaller targets. As a result, they only nabbed about a third (35%) of total information stolen in 2011.\nHacktivists, on the other hand, have inversely proportionate figures. Groups such Anonymous were responsible for only 2% of the Internet\u2019s security breaches, but nevertheless stole a staggering 58% of the world\u2019s data\u2014 a total of over 100 million records.\nOne commonality between the two kinds of hackers is their method of attack: they\u2019re hacking from home into companies they have no direct connection with. Only 4% of the world\u2019s hacks implicated internal employees in any way.\nHackers of all stripes are increasingly coming from all over the world, too. A year ago, Verizon reported a then-record 22 countries that originated attacks. This year, that number jumped to 36 countries, including Brazil, Bulgaria, India, Kuwait, South Africa, and Turkey.\nOrganized data thieves clearly follow a pattern of looking for easy security breaches. Nearly 80% of victims were found to be targets of opportunity, meaning \u201Cthey were found to possess an exploitable weakness rather than because they were pre-identified for an attack,\u201D the report said. Moreover, 96% of attacks were classified as \u201Cnot very difficult,\u201D meaning they would have been avoided with simple countermeasures. The report continued:\n\u201C[M]oney-driven crooks continue to focus more on opportunistic attacks against weaker targets. This may be at least partly because a good number of their brethren are enjoying jail time. Instead of major (and risky) heists, they pilfer smaller hauls of data from a multitude of smaller organizations that present a lower risk to the attacker.\u201D\nOne fascinating anecdote revealed the workweek of a particular small group of organized criminal hackers in Eastern Europe:\n\u201CAnalysis of the data showed the attackers not only had no routine work week, but they only worked an average of three days a week . During one particular three-day work week, they punched the clock on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. They compromised 22 organizations across nine countries; Monday was the most productive, with 15 confirmed breaches registered that day. We would joke about \u2018nice work if you can get it\u2019 but the jail time these guys are facing doesn\u2019t make for very nice work at all.\u201D\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, Muhla1"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/03/23/hactivist-data-theft/>