The 18th installment of the DBIR surveyed 22,052 total cyber attacks logged by Verizon's internal threat research team, over half of which (12,195) involved confirmed data breaches. Credential abuse continues in the lead at 22%. Exploitation of vulnerabilities is now up to 20%, followed by phishing at 16%.
Verizon’s DBIR finds that 82% of data breaches logged in 2021 involved a "human element" such as falling for phishing, re-use of stolen credentials, insider malfeasance or simply causing a configuration error.