Patchable and Preventable Security Issues Lead Causes of Q1 Attacks
Eighty-two percent of attacks on organizations in Q1 2022 were caused by the external exposure of a known vulnerabilities in the victim’s external-facing perimeter or attack surface. Those unpatched bugs overshadowed breach-related financial losses tied to human error, which accounted for 18 percent. The numbers come from Tetra Defense and its quarterly report that sheds light on a notable uptick in cyberattacks against United States organizations between January and March 2022. The report did not let employee security hygiene, or a lack thereof, off the hook. Tetra revealed that a lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA) mechanisms adopted by firms and compromised credential are still major factors in attacks against organizations. External Exposures: A Major Path of Compromise The study looks at the Root Point of Compromise (RPOC) in attacks. The RPOC is the initial entry point through which a threat actor infiltrates a victim organization and is categorized as the external exposure to a known vulnerability, or a malicious action performed by the user or a system misconfiguration. “Incidents caused by unpatched systems cost organizations 54 percent more than those caused by employee error,” according to the report. Researcher draw a line of distinction between “External Vulnerabilities” and “Risky External Exposures”. External Vulnerabilities, defined by Tetra Defense, refers incidents where an attacker leverages the publicly available exploit to attack the victim’s…