Cybercrime continues to grow: the Report on the Closing 2022, previewed to the press, underlines a growth in quantity and quality. In fact in the last 12 months they are severe attacks increased by 10%with an average of 171 per month: the highest figure ever recorded.
Clusit 2022 report: cyber crime continues to grow
The annual Report on the Closing 2022 comes at a particular time for cybersecurity. The members of the Italian Cyber Security Association, who submitted the report to the press before its March 15th publication, acknowledged it. The even cyber conflict carried out by the Kremlin and the response of those who oppose the invasion of Ukraine will have an impact on hacker attack statistics. But for the moment the exact figures are not yet available to the public.
But this does not mean that the data presented in the Report is not really interesting for IT security, quite the contrary. The Clusit researchers presented us with a general increase in the number of cybercriminal attacks. But they also wanted to assess the impact of individual incidents. Keeping in mind the aspects of image, the economic damage but also the social and geopolitical ones. And the photograph that comes out of it causes concern.
In fact, 2,049 serious cyber attacks were registered in 2021. An increase of 10% compared to last year with an average of 171 per month. So much so that in 2021 the 79% of the attacks had a high impact‘, compared to 50% last year. Of these, 47% had ‘high’ severity and the 32% reaches the level of ‘criticism‘.
Credit: Report on Closing 2022
A huge impact on the economy
The multiplier of the damage suffered by the attacks of cyber criminals is of enormous value. If in 2020 the Clusit reported damages for a trillion dollars, in 2021 we went up even at $ 6 trillion. We are talking about an enormous value, which makes intervention necessary and urgent.
Andrea Zapparoli Manzoni, member of the Clusit Steering Committee, explains that “This is a dramatic growth, with a 2-digit annual worsening rate, for a value already equal to 4 times the Italian GDP. It is no longer possible to postpone the adoption of effective countermeasures and the necessary investments. In our opinion, the resources allocated by the PNRR will have to be managed with stringent governance from a cyber security perspective of all the planned digitization projects, finally enhancing the cyber skills of the country’s human resources “.
The motivation for these serious attacks remains mainly the cyber criminewith 86% of attacks. Espionage reaches 11% while 2% concerns Information Warfare. Percentages that could change by recording the data since the beginning of the invasion in Ukraine. But the Committee during the conference did not agree in assessing how much: at the moment there are no publishable data.
Clusit Report 2022: the sectors most affected
A big change in cybercrime over the past few years is about targets. In fact, for the first time in years, the first item is no longer the “Multiple Objectives”. In fact, the precise attacks, with strategic objectives. In fact, in the first place there are government and military targets with 15%, with a growth of 3%. In all likelihood, a percentage that could even increase. In second place is the sector Computer scientistwith 14% of cases, followed by Multiple Goalswhich drop to 13%, like the Health. 8% concerns instead Education.
Credit: Report on Closing 2022
Sofia Scozzari, member of the Clusit Scientific Committee comments on this: “It is interesting to note that the difference between the percentages of the sectors most affected is narrowing: for the first time we do not see categories of victims specifically targeted compared to others. Instead, it is clear that cyber attacks are hitting all sectors, in a substantially uniform, and at the same time more selective, way.undifferentiated ‘trawling’ is decreasing “.
Ransomware is confirmed as a favorite hacker tool
I malware again this year they are the most used tool by cybercriminals. And among these, especially the Ransomware. The41% of total attacks. The ‘Unknown’ techniques (not made public by the victims or not recognized) are at 21%, especially for Data Breaches, while the known Vulnerabilities are worth 16% and Phishing / Social Engineering accounts for 10% of the attacks.
Credit: Report on Closing 2022
Phishing episodes related to Covid are still growing, as are attacks on the supply chain. Scozzari explains that: “The most worrying aspect is that, unlike the defenders, criminals today actively collaborate with each other. Criminal service cartels that can be identified, for example, as ‘Ransomware as a Service’ have become established. It means that the user of the ransomware is no longer necessarily the designer, nor a systems expert as we would expect from a ‘traditional’ cybercriminal. We think that at this point we are dealing with real organized crime, which has understood how much cyber crimes can be profitable “.
From a geographical point of view, 45% of cases remain in the American continent. But Europe is now worth a fifth (21%) of the attacks, followed by Asia (12%), Oceania (2%) and Asia (1%). Attacks in multiple locations drop (19%).
Clusit 2022 Report: Fastweb’s analysis
At the press conference and in the report we also find the Fastweb analysis, carried out by the company’s Security Operations Center (SOC). The infrastructure of Fastweb has 6.5 million public IPs, each with possibly hundreds of servers and devices. According to the company, there have been 42 million security events. An increase of even + 16%. Among these, malware and botnets rise with + 58%, especially in servers hosted in Europe rather than in America.
The Mail service provided by the company saw an increase in threats, especially from malicious URLs (87% of the total), up 11%. The Malicious SMS, with the phenomenon of smishing in great increase.
These are the first data of the Clusit 2022 Report. To know in its entirety the analysis ofItalian Association for IT Security you can follow the Security Summit Streaming Editionorganized with Astrea, Communication and Events Agency specialized in the IT Security sector.