New Industries Targeted

The NCA‘s Lisa Plaggemier said new industries will find themselves in attacker crosshairs. That includes education, aviation, automobile and gaming.

“The frequency of cyberattacks across myriad industries have continued to increase, with no sign of slowing,” she said. “Organizations operating in financial services, health care, energy, government and critical infrastructure have long been perceived as abundant hunting grounds for hackers to disrupt and steal from. It’s reasonable to assume, however, that these industries are slowly adapting better incident response protocols, investing in security services and technologies, and increasing cybersecurity training measures. Though attacks on the aforementioned industries will continue, bad actors will also always seek out less prepared targets where low-tech, high-impact attacks (e.g., phishing, ransomware and social engineering) will net big rewards. In the coming year, education, aviation, auto and gaming will be greater targets in cybercriminals’ crosshairs. And incident frequency is already ramping up in the wake of recent ransomware and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against airlines and auto parts manufacturers.”

Recent data indicates a 167% spike in attacks on gaming companies and a 44% increase in education sector attacks this year alone, Plaggemier said. Expect these numbers to continue at pace or increase in 2023. The silver lining, however, is that new targets will slowly adapt and learn the value of deterrence measures like those before them.