According to a new report, an overwhelming majority of the cyber attacks in 2001 involved relatively simple techniques and could have been avoided easily.

The annual Verizon report on data breaches, which was released on Thursday, said most of the cyber attacks were simple as 97 per cent were data breaches. It also said that about 80 per cent of the attacks were targeted against those who presented an opportunity to the hackers instead of the companies that were specifically targeted.

The study points out that even as the companies are allocating increasing resources and deploying ever more sophisticated security systems; it is ignoring basic fundaments in cyber security.

The researchers analyzed investigations into more than 850 data breaches in the year to prepare the report. It was compiled with the help of the and law enforcement agencies in the United states, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Ireland and Australia, the company said.

Verizon said that it recorded more attacks by so-called "hactivist" groups than the number of attacks by hackers who were looking specifically to steak financial details or personal data of Internet users.