We have often talked about cybersecurity on Tech Princess. And in recent months we have found ourselves emphasizing how cybercrime is on the rise globally. Also because now the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is taking place on two levels: that of war-warfare, with blows of arms, and that precisely on the terrain of cyber offensives. In an article we talked about a conflict within a conflict, a cyberwar.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the rise of cybercrime
This is what Sofia Scozzari, one of the authors of the Clusit 2022 report on cybersecurity, affirms.
Scozzari says: “The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has deployed highly sophisticated cyber-offensive tools to support cyber-intelligence and cyber-warfare activities.: we fear that this process is difficult to reverse and that in the future it could cause consequences of unprecedented severity. “
To the point that the co-author of the report, Andrea Zapparoli Manzoni, says that we are “on the threshold of a global cyber war”.
The Clusit report
These are certainly not comforting premises of the Clusit annual report, which can be downloaded from the official website.
Clusit, the Italian Association for Information Security, has been active since July 2000.
The report examined the “most significant security incidents that occurred globally in the first half of 2022”, which have been compared with those collected in the previous four years. Let’s see the outcome of the research.
Cyberattacks in the first six months of 2022
Clusit’s report is a dense 136-page document. From which, however, we can deduce some general data, which show how cybercrime is growing, in the world and especially in Europe.
In the first six months of the current year, 1,141 cyber attacks considered serious were detected, with an increase of 8.4% compared to the first half of 2021. The overall average is 190 attacks per month, with a peak of 225 attacks recorded in March of this year, the highest on record.
To understand the growth of the phenomenon, it is sufficient to go backwards: the monthly average in 2021 was 171 attacks, which dropped to 130 in 2018 and even 39 in 2011.
The growth of cybercrime in Europe
In the section of the report intended for the recipients of cyberattacks, we can see a little exciting trend in our continent.
In fact, we read in the document, “In 2022 the victims of the American area decrease (from 45% to 38%), while the attacks against European-based realities increase significantly (from 21% to 26%) and those detected against Asian organizations decrease slightly (from 12% to 8 %). “
This is where the war between Russia and Ukraine comes in. Which has made some attack purposes grow exponentially. For example, in the first half of 2022 there was a + 414% of attacks attributable to the “Hacktivism” category, a + 119% for the “Information Warfare” category and a + 62% of offensives for “Espionage” purposes.
The most affected categories
In the first half of the year, serious attacks on multiple targets categories (+ 108.3%), or offensives aimed at multiple targets, increased above all (+ 108.3%).
In crescita anche gli attacchi alle categorie Telecommunication (+77,8%), Financial-Insurance (+76,7%), News-Multimedia (+50%), Manufacturing (+34%), Other Services (+30,8%), Ict (+11,5%), Energy-Utilities (+5,3%) ed Healthcare (+2,2%).
The methods of attack
Also in the first half of 2022, attacks carried out via malware account for over a third of global offensives (38%).
In second place are unknown techniques (22%), with an increase of 10% compared to the same period in 2021.
Ma among the greatest increases are those of attacks with multiple techniques (+ 93.8%) and those of the “Phishing / Social Engineering” category (+ 26.8%).
What Italy can do
Gabriele Faggioli, president of Clusit, spoke on the growing cybercrime and on the ever new ways of the attacks. And he did it above all in reference to our country.
Faggioli said: “Italy must seize the opportunity of the digital transition to fill its gaps in IT security. The geopolitical scenario brutally places us in front of the obligation to have infrastructures resistant to external attacks which could undermine the ability to deliver essential services to citizens.
I believe that never more than now a strong political choice is fundamental, and possibly unambiguous at European level; Never before is it important to make the best use of the resources of the PNRR, in the context of a collective political and entrepreneurial effort that will serve to overcome the current crisis and to face the next challenges ”.