[HN Gopher] 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report [pdf]
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       2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report [pdf]
        
       Author : cws
       Score  : 81 points
       Date   : 2024-05-01 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.verizon.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.verizon.com)
        
       | lenerdenator wrote:
       | Breaches by attackers will continue until it becomes
       | prohibitively expensive or dangerous for the attackers to do what
       | they do. This isn't something companies can do; it takes a
       | government to do that.
       | 
       | Until then, it's a great way to squeeze crypto out of some
       | company to make up for the fact that your country is under
       | sanctions tied to the US Dollar, and since it's hard to prove to
       | the bean counters that an attack will happen with reasonable
       | certainty on a given system in the next quarter, good luck
       | getting resources and priority for mitigations beyond the usual.
        
         | alephnerd wrote:
         | > since it's hard to prove to the bean counters that an attack
         | will happen with reasonable certainty on a given system in the
         | next quarter, good luck getting resources and priority for
         | mitigations beyond the usual.
         | 
         | False.
         | 
         | Companies are now liable to report breaches to the SEC and
         | steps taken to remediate.
         | 
         | As I've mentioned several times on HN before, heads do roll and
         | C-Suite does care about security posture now that liability and
         | insurance payouts are on the line.
         | 
         | The annoying thing is HNers will never see the actual successes
         | (because these are obviously kept private) and only see a
         | couple glaring failures.
         | 
         | Furthermore, this report is an advertisement for Verizon's MSSP
         | division (Verizon Business), which companies pay to manage
         | their security posture - all telcos have had an MSSP BU since
         | the 1980s (ATT Global Business Services being the market
         | leader)
         | 
         | You'll see a lot of BS like this for the next 2 months because
         | RSA is in 2 weeks and AWS Re:Invent in a month. It's conference
         | season (great time to stock up on free tshirts and drink
         | Blanton's on the corporate tab)
        
           | lenerdenator wrote:
           | > Companies are now liable to report breaches to the SEC and
           | steps taken to remediate.
           | 
           | I'm looking at UnitedHealth's stock price over the last year.
           | The theft happened in February. There was a dip; it's already
           | recovering from that.
           | 
           | The market doesn't particularly care about those disclosures,
           | it would seem.
        
             | alephnerd wrote:
             | Stocks are not the "holy grail decide all" when much of UHG
             | and Optum's leadership is in front of Congress as we speak
             | during an election year and with significant liabilities
             | due to potential breaches of contract by failing to produve
             | billing to their customers.
             | 
             | Go on LinkedIn and take a look at who's on the CISO org and
             | below at UHG and Optum today - in 6 months 60% of them will
             | no longer list either as their employer.
             | 
             | UHG the organization will continue to exist, but the people
             | who make up that organization will have their heads roll.
             | 
             | There is no Mr UHG the 3rd running stuff there or in the
             | majority of F1000s - it's professional managers who climb
             | up and down the ladder.
             | 
             | Not everything is some sort of conspiracy with mustachioed
             | men and DEI puppets parroting Milton Friedman and Ronald
             | Regan like the HN hivemind loves to think.
        
               | lenerdenator wrote:
               | Being dragged in front of Congress on anything related to
               | a computer is not a big deal; if it were, Mark Zuckerberg
               | would not be CEO of Meta. The liabilities will be played
               | out in court over the next decade, and you'll possibly
               | see some legislation passed over that time period
               | limiting liability in these situations, because how can
               | we possibly expect these companies to deliver value to
               | shareholders while shouldering the risks posed by
               | adversarial state-backed hackers?
               | 
               | Personal responsibility as conducted through firings
               | means more for the rank-and-file than for directors and
               | above. It's not about what you've done as much as who you
               | know in those levels.
               | 
               | TL;DR: I'll believe it when I see it.
        
               | alephnerd wrote:
               | > how can we possibly expect these companies to deliver
               | value to shareholders while shouldering the risks posed
               | by adversarial state-backed hackers
               | 
               | 1. Liability
               | 
               | 2. Insurance Premiums
               | 
               | 3. Regulation
               | 
               | 1 and 2 are already in place, and 3 is currently working
               | it's way over the next couple years.
               | 
               | > TL;DR: I'll believe it when I see it.
               | 
               | Cynicism is valid, but at some point it's just unfounded
               | nihilism, and you as an individual IC will never publicly
               | see these changes as they are well above your pay grade
               | (and you sure as hell won't hear about it publicly)
               | 
               | > Being dragged in front of Congress on anything related
               | to a computer is not a big deal
               | 
               | It is when you are on the hook for that federal bailout
               | to prevent the entire healthcare system from collapsing
               | [0] caused by incompetence surrounding credential
               | management
               | 
               | [0] - https://www.wsj.com/articles/calls-mount-for-
               | government-help...
        
               | photonthug wrote:
               | > Cynicism is valid, but at some point it's just
               | unfounded nihilism, and you as an individual IC will
               | never publicly see these changes as they are well above
               | your pay grade (and you sure as hell won't hear about it
               | publicly)
               | 
               | Weird comment, are we supposed to trade the unfounded
               | nihilism for unfounded optimism? Apparently
               | accountability and transparency[1] are widely available..
               | behind closed doors.
               | 
               | [1]: yep, transparency is kinda required for having
               | effective insurance, regulation, or liability.
        
               | dantillberg wrote:
               | The CISO role is too often just a game of roulette. The
               | big question is whether the CISO is actually able to
               | effect changes that have material impact on their own
               | fate, by improving security posture. If not, then the
               | CISO is merely compensated to play the scapegoat when
               | luck is down.
        
               | alephnerd wrote:
               | CISOs aren't the only heads that roll.
               | 
               | Security incidents will often directly impact platform
               | and infrastructure teams, who's leadership and EMs heads
               | roll as well.
               | 
               | If there is a very public breach, literally everyone
               | director upwards will inevitably get purged over the 12
               | months post breach.
               | 
               | I've worked on enough cases like this to see it happen.
        
               | Starman_Jones wrote:
               | If it doesn't affect stock price, though, then the CEO,
               | board, and shareholders are all incentivized to keep IS
               | costs low, and ignore any costly security
               | recommendations.
        
       | er0k wrote:
       | Kelly Shortridge's post about the DBIR is great
       | https://kellyshortridge.com/blog/posts/shortridge-makes-sens...
        
         | hackncheese wrote:
         | I was _thoroughly_ entertained by this read, thanks for the rec
        
       | westmeal wrote:
       | Kind of ironic they try to collect an email on this page and you
       | simply have to hit view only.
        
         | internetter wrote:
         | What is ironic about this?
        
           | observationist wrote:
           | Verizon having to publicly disclose that they screwed up
           | protecting the data they collect, and then, like a desperate
           | addict, asking for more data? Yeah, no, you're right, not
           | ironic at all.
        
             | Veserv wrote:
             | It is a report that Verizon produced about data breaches in
             | industry, not a report about a data breach at Verizon.
             | 
             | Please at least click the link before making snarky
             | comments or your snarky comments will be misinformed.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | You have to admit the title "2024 Verizon Data Breach
               | Investigation Report" is very easily interpreted as a
               | Verizon data breach.
        
           | nyokodo wrote:
           | > What is ironic about this?
           | 
           | It could be considered situational irony for a company
           | reporting on industry data breaches to expect readers to
           | disclose personal information as one would expect them to
           | display sensitivity to unnecessary capture of precisely this
           | kind of data.
        
       | ffpip wrote:
       | Direct link -
       | https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/T5d2/reports/2024...
       | 
       | From the title, it seemed that Verizon had published a postmortem
       | of a recent data breach incident they had
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Official release, other links:
       | 
       | https://www.verizon.com/about/news/2024-data-breach-investig...
        
       | hk1337 wrote:
       | Geez, all 3 major mobile phone providers have had a data breach
       | fairly recently.
       | 
       | T-Mobile (2021), AT&T (2024), Verizon (2024)
        
         | selectodude wrote:
         | It wasn't a breach at Verizon.
        
           | hk1337 wrote:
           | Ah, okay. I misunderstood.
        
       | chefandy wrote:
       | This is actually a really solid high-level report. Very well-
       | written. Frankly, it blows my mind that it was made by a company
       | with such infuriatingly asinine, incompetent, and ineffective
       | support processes. I'll bet a non-zero quantity of hiring
       | managers that have been burned by Verizon's support have
       | subconsciously passed over talented candidates coming from there.
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-01 23:00 UTC)