by James McFarlin
Target. Neiman Marcus. eBay. The New York Times. The U.S.
Navy. The Federal Reserve. The list of organizations falling victim to cyber
attacks recently continues to grow, with the number of reported security
incidents rising from 2,989 in 2012 to 3,741 in 2013.
The severity is increasing, too, with the loss of customer
information in some attacks reaching astronomical levels: 110 million accounts
from Target, while eBay compromised up to 145 million customer records.
According to Forbes,
the average losses per incident are also climbing at a rate of 23%
year-over-year, with incident losses exceeding $10 million per occurrence. This
is up 75% from just two years ago.
Due to a combination of factors, including timing, carefully
selected targets, and increasing sophistication, attacks are becoming more successful, not less. These
increases exist in spite of major increases in cyber security spending.
