Thailand and Vietnam were also standouts in a global report of cyberattack trends in a cybersecurity firm’s user base.
Check Point Research (CPR) has released its latest findings on the global cyber threat situation, based on own ThreatCloud customer ecosystem.
Globally, after a slight decrease before March 2020, there had been a significant increase in the average weekly number of attacks on each organization over the months from March 2020 through 2021.
In September 2021, the average weekly number of attacks on each organization in the Check Point ThreatCloud global ecosystem reached its peak with over 870 attacks. This was more than double the number of attacks in March 2020.
In terms of cyberattacks, the Asia Pacific region (APAC) was the second most targeted region, with an average of 1,299 weekly attacks per organization, after Africa with an average of 1,615 weekly attacks per organization.
Other findings
In the Check Point global user ecosystem:
- Europe and North America faced the biggest increases in cyberattacks between 2020 and 2021. Organizations in Africa experienced the highest volume of attacks so far in 2021, a 15% increase from last year. This was followed by APAC (20% increase), then by Latin America with an average of 1,117 attacks weekly (37% increase), Europe with 665 (65% increase) and North America with 497 (57% increase).
- In South-east Asia, Indonesia saw the highest number of attacks in terms of volume, with an average of 2,981 weekly attacks per organization so far in 2021, a 15% increase from 2020. That was followed by Thailand at 1,686 (28% increase), Vietnam at 1,486 (8% decrease), Philippines at 1,391 (35% increase), Malaysia at 960 (4% decrease), and Singapore at an average of 953 weekly attacks per organization. Though Singapore’s attack by volume was the lowest in this region, it was seeing a 106% increase compared to the 2020 average.
- The sectors which have been experiencing the highest volumes of cyberattacks in the firm’s user ecosystem are Education/Research with an average of 1,468 attacks per organization each week (increase of 60% from 2020), followed by Government/Military with 1,082 (40% increase) and Healthcare with 752 (55% increase).
- Ransomware continues to plague organizations across the world. Globally in 2021, on average, one out of every 61 organizations in the firm’s ecosystem was impacted by ransomware each week: a 9% increase compared to 2020.
- The industries most attacked by ransomware in the ThreatCloud data this year were:
- the ISP/MSP sector: 2021’s average weekly number of impacted organizations was one out of 36 (32% increase from 2020)
- The Healthcare sector: one out of 44 organizations impacted (39% increase)
- software vendors: one out of 52 organizations (21% increase)
- The firm’s APAC user ecosystem saw the highest volume of attack attempts by ransomware with one out of 34 organizations being impacted every week in 2021. This was a 10% decrease compared to 2020. Africa’s one out of 48 organizations being impacted (7% decrease), and Latin America’s one out of 57 organizations (6% increase) were next in line.
- The malware type which has impacted organizations in the firm’s user base the most is the botnet, with an average of over 8% organizations being impacted weekly (a 9% decrease from 2020). This was followed by banking malware at 4.6% (a 26% increase) and cryptominers at 4.2% (a 22% decrease).
Said the firm’s Data Research Group Manager, Threat Intelligence and Research Organization, Omer Dembinsky: “Since the outbreak of the pandemic globally, cybercriminals have sprung into action to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. With the continued rise in cyberattacks, organizations (should) adopt a preventive approach to cybersecurity, rather than work on remediation after the fact when damage has been inflicted.”
