Despite increasing security awareness and a heightened focus on information privacy, enterprises remain highly vulnerable to all manner of cyber attacks, Hewlett-Packard concluded in the latest installment of its annual Cyber Risk Report. Published on Monday, the paper lists configuration issues and and widespread use of antiquated technologies among the main threats to large organizations.

“Adversaries today are more adept than ever and are collaborating more effectively to take advantage of vulnerabilities across an ever-expanding attack surface,” commented Jacob West the CTO of Enterprise Security Products at HP. “The industry must band together to proactively share security intelligence and tactics in order to disrupt malicious activities driven by the growing underground marketplace.”

HP saw the number of published exploits fall six percent in 2013 compared with the prior 12 months, while vulnerabilities labelled “high-severity” decreased nine percent for the fourth consecutive year. The company attributes this decline not to advancements in cybersecurity, but rather a “surge” in black market demand.

These figures are made even more notable by the fact that nearly 80 percent of applications reviewed in the study contained vulnerabilities stemming from misconfiguration. Additionally, the company found that 46 percent of Android and iOS apps either don’t encrypt sensitive information stored locally, rely on weak algorithms to do so, or fail to properly implement data protection.

On the browser front, HP reported that Internet Explorer accounted for more than 50 percent of vulnerabilities discovered as part of its Zero-Day Initiative. Equally notable is that sandbox bypass vulnerabilities were the most prevalent and damaging for Java users, especially when hackers used multiple known vulnerabilities in combined attacks.

The company recommends that organizations keep close track of the threat landscape, particularly vulnerabilities in hybrid mobile development platforms, and strive for a “combination of the right people, processes and technology” to mitigate security risks.