Global communications giant Verizon Business launched its supplemental Data Breach Investigations Report today, offering customers some useful case studies and other information which could help them avoid a data breach.

The report found that most (19 per cent) of breaches are caused by keyloggers and spyware, closely followed by backdoor/command and control and SQL injection attacks.

Abuse of systems access comes swiftly behind and unauthorised access via default credentials is in fifth place.

So having detailed what are the most common threats to guard against, Verizon helpfully then lists each in detail, including how to spot an attack, how to mitigate one, and a useful case study to provide more background info.

The information may seem like basic stuff to many CISOs, but is likely to go down well among those organisations at the smaller end of SME which are struggling to keep their heads above water with limited IT, and even more limited information security, resources at their disposal.