VerifiedThreat  Index | Vertical Sectors

AI

Chat GPT scored a perfect 100% and Gemini from Google achieved a 90% score. GenAI models are highly susceptible to data poisoning once the core models are exposed directly.

Ads | Marketing

The Advertising & Marketing sector had one standout performer Top Cash Back, who out-performed the sector. In general the sector’s performance was sub-par with several brand names considerably underperforming.

Airline | Travel

The airlines and related travel sector was sub-par for the most part, despite the need to protect customer confidential data, and the obvious exposure to cyberattacks. Expedia group performed well with 90%, but the major airlines lagged behind.

Automotive

The automotive industry was by far the worst performing sector, with no single web domain achieving even a par score. The average score was 6, which effectively means that several of the sites had critical levels of cybersecurity defences

Banking

The Co-op bank outperformed the sector and was the only one with rigorous perimeter defence. Major threats are site cloning which can capture tokens input into the fake site, with automated login to the real site, bypassing the MFA.

Beauty & Cosmetics

Standout performers were Boots and Superdrug with a perfect score. Online retailers are subject to repeated payment gateway attacks, account-take-over and shopping cart abuse, and have upped the perimeter defences accordingly.

Ecommerce Sector

🏆 Top Performer ✅ Etsy.com – 100% (Excellent) ➡️ Best-in-class external threat protection. 💡 Key Takeaway: Even among household retail giants, cybersecurity posture varies dramatically. While a few players like Etsy lead the way, many trusted UK retail brands show significant vulnerabilities

Education

The remote learning and education sector had one par performance from udemy.com but the rest of the sector badly underperformed.The growth in remote learning and online education, it seems, hasn't included cybersecurity

Fashion & Homeware

Standout performers were JDSports, Debenhams & New Look. In general this sector performed the best overall, despite continued poor performance from the likes of M&S. Online retailers are subject to payment gateway attacks, account-take-over and shopping cart abuse, but also have to be very competitive and consumer friendly.

Financial

Pay-by-Bank specialists Token.io and TrueLayer both scored perfect 100s, while Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert.com and Yahoo finance also scored 100% in the content space.

Food & Beverage

The consumer facing fast-food services in general performed the best, with standout performances from Domino’s Pizza, KFC and Iceland, however, some of the supermarkets and major household brands showed sub-par performance.

Health

Despite the obvious need for security to protect confidential patient data, the health sector in general in the UK was well below par with the notable exception of pharmacy2u.co.uk who scored a perfect score. In general transactional sites with patient login performed better, but both the NHS and Bupa were significantly below par

Hospitality Sector

The hospitality sector is rife with bots and automated agents that scrape inventory, data mine APIs for pricing and listings data. Most badly underperformed and were subject to content and IP theft.

Investment

Despite the obvious financial implications, investment sites as a sector performed badly, with the exception of trading sites, and in particular Trading212 who scored 90%. The non-transactional investment sites performed particularly poorly.

Online Services

The online services saw a standout performance from recruitment site indeed.com with a perfect score of 100%. However, this excellent performance wasn’t reflected in the sector overall, as many large brand names were distinctly sub-par.

RealEstate

The real-estate sector in general showed some very poor results on many of the cybersecurity assessments including some of the largest brand names. Zoopla was the only site that managed to produce a par result and outperformed the sector.

Restaurants

The restaurant and fast food sector best performers were in the transactional takeout market where the risks of online transaction vulnerabilities are higher than in a normal restaurant. FoodHub outperformed the sector with a standout performance of 100%, and fast chain KFC and Domino’s Pizza also achieved a perfect score.

SaaS & Dev Tools

The SaaS and software development sector showed poor results across the board. Canva showed a reasonable result, but even the best performing company in this sector was sub-par.

Sport

Sports betting sites performed by far the best in the overall Sports sector, with boxing site DAZN, Paddy Power and SkyBet scoring a perfect 100. There was a marked dropoff in security performance for the rest of the sector, with sports content performing badly.

Travel & Tourism

TripAdvisor UK and TUI scored a perfect 100%, with Expedia doing well at 90%. In general the travel sector has been subject to constant theft of content listings, price scraping, and account take over attacks, and has good protection against perimeter attacks