According to McAfee Enterprise’s ‘Advanced Threat Research Report: October 2021’, the government was the most targeted sector in Q2 2021, with a 64% increase in publicly reported cyber incidents.
A new report released on Monday noted that India now ranks second only to the United States in terms of security threats on cloud, followed by Australia, Canada, and Brazil, with malware being the most commonly used technique in reported incidents.
Cyber criminals have adopted new and updated threats and tatics in campaigns targeting key sectors such as government, financial services, and entertainment, as a result of the shift to a more flexible pandemic workforce.
According to McAfee Enterprise’s ‘Advanced Threat Research Report: October 2021’, the government was the most targeted sector in Q2 2021, with a 64% increase in publicly reported cyber incidents.
Raj Samani, McAfee Enterprise Fellow and Chief Scientist, said “Ransomware has evolved far beyond its origins, and cybercriminals have become smarter and quicker to pivot their tactics alongside a whole host of new bad-actor schemes,”
He added “Names such as REvil, Ryuk, Babuk and DarkSide have permeated into public consciousness, linked to disruptions of critical services worldwide,”
The government was the most targeted sector by ransomware in Q2 2021, followed by telecom, energy, and media and communications.
From Q1 to Q2 2021, the number of reported incidents of Spam increased by 250%, followed by Malicious Script with 125% and 47 percent for Malware.
Among the reported cloud incidents, financial services were the most targeted, followed by healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and professional services.
The report noted that “The US experienced the most reported incidents in the second quarter, and Europe saw the largest increases in reported incidents in Q2 with 52 per cent,”
Following the attack on the Colonial Pipeline, ransomware became a high-profile cyber agenda item for the United States administration in the second quarter of 2021.
The report mentioned, “In the second quarter of 2021, we continued to see the challenges of shifting cloud security to accommodate a more flexible pandemic workforce and an increased workload, which presented cybercriminals with more potential exploits and targets,”