Report: Hacking Not Always for Financial Gain

According to a recent report from the Web Application Security Consortium, stealing money and data is not always the main motivation for hackers. Twenty-four percent of 57 Web site hacks from last year defaced sites for political or cultural reasons, not for financial gain.

The Web Hacking Incidents Database Annual Report shows that stealing sensitive information was the second most common motivation, occurring in 19 percent of the hacks, according to InfoWorld.

SQL injection was the most common way that attacks were perpetrated, accounting for 30 percent of the hacks.

Certainly, there were thousands of hacked Web sites last year, but the consortium chose the 57 incidents using strict criteria: the incidents had to be publicly reported, associated with Web application security problems and they had an identifiable impact on an organization.