2022 was another year that kept us on our toes. The threat landscape was heavily influenced by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, during which we have seen the whole arsenal of offensive cyber capabilities, deployed by criminals, hacktivists, and nation state groups.
Though perhaps not the ‘cybergeddon’ that some expected from the next big global conflict, we have seen state-sponsored attacks ramp up, with cyber warfare proving to be critical across this hybrid cyber-kinetic battlefield.”
We saw the overall number of ransomware incidents dip by around 5% compared to the previous year. But, this slight dip does not mean we collectively declare ‘job done’.
Indeed, this decline in attack volumes and revenue for cyber criminals is likely in part due to an increasingly hardline and collaborative response from governments and law enforcement around the globe. As well as of course the global impact of the war in Ukraine.
As a result, we have witnessed several coordinated operations in 2022 that saw arrests of key members of prolific cyber-criminal operations, as well as the disbanding of long-established groups. Least of all Conti, which was 2021’s most active group.”
Looking ahead to 2023, we expect bad actors to have a renewed focus on supply chain attacks, and continued success in the use of Business Email Compromise.
We also assess that multi factor authentication (MFA) will come under attack as we have already seen new bypass techniques being deployed, including MFA Fatigue attacks and sim-swapping, and that misconfigurations in API’s will result in in further big data breaches in 2023.
So, threats will persist and organisations must remain vigilant and understand how they could be exposed and take steps to mitigate any risk.