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Public Administration
NAICS 92

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  • Frequency

    		  

    2,792 incidents, 537 with confirmed data disclosure

    Top patterns

    		  

    System Intrusion, Miscellaneous Errors and Basic Web Application Attacks represent 81% of breaches

    Threat actors

    		  

    External (78%), Internal (22%) (breaches)

    Actor motives

    		  

    Financial (80%), Espionage (18%), Ideology (1%), Grudge (1%) (breaches)

    Data compromised

    		  

    Personal (46%), Credentials (34%), Other (28%), Internal (28%) (breaches)

    Top IG1 protective controls

    		  

    Security Awareness and Skills Training (CSC 14), Access Control Management (CSC 6), Account Management (CSC 5)

    What is the same?

    		  

    Miscellaneous Errors remain in the top three patterns in the same place as last year.

    Summary

    		  

    The System Intrusion pattern is the newest big dog to arrive on the scene in this sector. Employees continue to be a cause of breaches in this vertical, although Internal actors are seven times more likely to make a mistake than to commit a malicious act that causes a breach.

  • Patterns

    		  

    5-Year difference

    		  

    3-Year difference

    Basic Web Application Attacks

    		  

    No change

    		  

    Greater

    Miscellaneous Errors

    		  

    No change

    		  

    Less

    System Intrusion

    		  

    Greater

    		  

    Greater

  • Pattern

    		  

    Difference with peers

    		  

     

    System Intrusion

    		  

    Greater

    		  

     

    Miscellaneous Errors

    		  

    No change

    		  

     

    Basic Web Application Attacks

    		  

    Less

    		  

     

  • Here and now

    The System Intrusion pattern has drop-kicked the Social Engineering pattern right out of the “top three” club. This was quite the coup, considering the Social Engineering pattern was in the top spot last year. In part, this may be attributed to some prominent and far-reaching supply chain breaches that came to light last year.

    As the Social Engineering pattern fell, the Basic Web Application Attacks stepped in to fill the vacuum. Miscellaneous Errors remained in the middle spot, with the trio of Misconfiguration, Misdelivery and Loss nearly tied for what caused the most error-based breaches in this sector.

    The occurrence of errors in this industry accounts for the prevalence of breaches caused by the Internal actor. While there was a smattering of Misuse breaches in this sector, internal actors are about seven times more likely to make a mistake that causes a breach than they are to do something malicious.

    We have said before how popular Credentials are as a data type to be raided. However, this year’s data showed a drop from 2021’s report, when it was 80% in this industry. Personal was only 18% last year, but has now catapulted into the top spot.

     

    Step into my raggedy DeLorean

    In honor of our 15-year anniversary, we wanted to take a look back in time at what has changed in this sector. Just three years ago, the top motive was Espionage, at 66% of breaches. Five years ago, it was 64%, which illustrates that it has been a persistent challenge for Government entities. This makes sense, when you consider that regardless of which Government entity we are talking about, someone wants to know what they’re up to. Speaking of malicious—we found that the Espionage motive is up from 4% from last year to 18% this year. Internal breaches also increased from last year, and we have the motive of Grudge popping up in our list for a change.

    Figure 101 illustrates the change in the Espionage-motivated actors in this industry since 2017. As you can see, when the Espionage motive fell, the Financially-motivated attacks rose. It appears that the Public Administration sector has joined the rest of us in being targeted by criminals looking to make a buck. Welcome to the party, pal!27

  • 27 Admit it, you read this in John McClane’s voice.

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