U.S. government cyber security incidents by attack vector 2018

Improper usage accounted for almost a third of federal information security incidents in the United States. E-mail and phishing attacks generated 22 percent of incidents during the FY 2018. Throughout the most recently published year, U.S. government agencies reported 31,107 cyber incidents, an approximately 11.8 percent decrease from the previous period.

Distribution of cyber security incident reports by federal agencies in the United States during FY 2018, by attack vector

Characteristic	Share of incidents
Improper usage	31%
E-mail / phishing	22%
Web	11%
Loss or theft of equipment	8%
Impersonation / external or removable media / multiple attack vectors*	1%
Attrition	1%
Other	27%

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Release date

July 2019

More information

Region

United States

Survey time period

Fiscal year 2018

Special properties

CFO Act agencies and non-CFO Act agencies

Supplementary notes

*Less than one percent

Attrition: An attack that employs brute force methods to compromise, degrade, or destroy systems, networks, or services
Loss or theft of equipment: The loss or theft of a computing device or media used by the organization
Web: An attack executed from ta website or web-based application
E-mail/phishing: An attack executed via e-mail message or attachment
Improper usage: Any incident results from violation of an organization's acceptable usage policies by an authorized user that is not reported as part of another threat vector category
Impersonation: An attack involving replacement of legitimate content/services with a malicious substitute
External/removable media: An attack executed from removable media or a peripheral device
Multiple attack vectors: An attack that uses two or more of the attack types in combination
Other: An attack method that does not fit into any other type or is undefined

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