Human error-related breaches may be down by 9% in 2023, but Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) 2023 mentions it remains the top threat for data leaks.

A nuanced reading of the report reveals that system administrators and developers are more prone to falling prey to making errors than normal employees in 2023.

Human error is an ongoing concern

With 602 security incidents (512 of them confirmed data disclosure breaches) from November 2021 to October 2022, Verizon’s report sheds light on the most common human error types, such as Misdelivery, Misconfiguration, and Publishing errors. These errors are usually committed by administrators and developers with elevated privileges, with carelessness contributing to 98% of those errors.

Common types of data that were compromised during the breaches include personal (89%), medical (19%), bank (10%), and others (10%).

Sending something to the wrong recipient accounted for 43% of breach-related errors (misdelivery). About 23% of the errors result from showing information to the unintended audience (publishing). Lastly, 21% of the human error incidents resulted from wrongful configuration issues (misconfiguration).

While it may seem that laziness may be the culprit here, Verizon’s report says that is far from the truth. In the preceding year, misconfiguration resulted in 58% of the breaches, and misdelivery came in second with 30% of the security incidents. These shifting trends year on year paint a picture of the ever-evolving nature of cybersecurity threats.