2022 Great Year for Cybercriminals

In other cybersecurity news this week …

According to the latest Check Point Research (CPR) data, global cyberattacks increased 38% in 2022 compared to the prior year.

These cyberattack numbers were driven by smaller, more agile hacker and ransomware gangs. They focused on exploiting collaboration tools used in work-from-home (WFH) environments, targeting education institutions that shifted to e-learning post COVID-19.

This increase in global cyberattacks also stems from hacker interest in health care organizations. Health care saw the largest increase in cyberattacks in 2022, when compared to all other industries.

CPR warns the maturity of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as ChatGPT, can accelerate the number of cyberattacks in 2023. ChatGPT is a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November.

Key CPR statistics include:

• The global volume of cyberattacks reached an all-time high in the fourth quarter with an average of 1,168 weekly attacks per organization.
• The top three most attacked industries in 2022 were education/research, government and health care.
• Africa experienced the highest volume of attacks with 1,875 weekly attacks per organization, followed by APAC with 1,691 weekly attacks per organization.
• North America (+52%), Latin America (+29%) and Europe (+26%) showed the biggest increases in cyberattacks in 2022, compared to 2021.
• The United States saw a 57% increase in overall cyberattacks in 2022, while the United Kingdom saw a 77% increase and Singapore saw a 26% increase.

Omer Dembinsky is data group manager at Check Point Software Technologies. He said several cyber threat trends are all happening at once.

“For one, the ransomware ecosystem is continuing to evolve and grow with smaller, more agile criminal groups that form to evade law enforcement,” he said. “Second, hackers are widening their aim to target business collaboration tools such as Slack, Teams, OneDrive and Google Drive with phishing exploits. These make for a rich source of sensitive data given that most organizations’ employees continue to work remotely.”

Third, academic institutions have become a popular feeding ground for cybercriminals following the rapid digitization they undertook in response to the pandemic, Dembinsky said.

“Many education institutions have been ill-prepared for the unexpected shift to online learning, creating ample opportunity for hackers to infiltrate networks through any means necessary,” he said. “Schools and universities also have the unique challenge of dealing with children or young adults, many of which use their own devices, work from shared locations, and often connect to public Wi-Fi without thinking of the security implications.”