Third Annual Ponemon Institute Study Finds Endpoint Vulnerability Top Hacker Exploit

Hikvision Tips to Prevent Exploits and Account Hacks

The Ponemon Institute’s third annual Endpoint Security study found that 68 percent of security professionals rated endpoint attacks a top vulnerability in 2019 exploited by hackers, according to an article in SecurityInfoWatch.com (SIW).

From the article: “Of those incidents that were successful, 80 percent were new or unknown, zero-day attacks. These attacks either involved the exploitation of undisclosed vulnerabilities or the use of new malware variants that signature-based, detection solutions do not recognize. Zero-day attacks continue to increase in frequency and are expected to more than double in the coming year. These attacks are also inflicting more bottom-line business damage. The study found that the average cost per endpoint breach increased to $9M in 2019, up more than $2M since 2018.”

Additional results from the research found that 40 percent of respondents say it is taking them longer to patch vulnerability gaps. Patch exploits will also be major 2020 concern as organizations upgrade to Windows 10 (from Windows 7), according to the SIW article.

“Over half of cybersecurity professionals say their organizations are ineffective at thwarting major threats today because their endpoint security solutions are not effective at detecting advanced attacks,” said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of Ponemon Institute, in the article.

Hikvision provides more insights on preventing backdoor exploits and account hacks in this blog: “Threat Actors Use Backdoor Exploits to Attack Businesses.”