Cyber-attacks targeting government sector has increased by 95 percent: Report

The number of cyber-attacks targeting the government sector has increased by 95 percent in the second half of 2022, as compared to the same period in 2021, a new report revealed on Friday. India, USA, Indonesia, and China continued to be the most targeted countries in the past two years. Together these four countries accounted for ~40 percent of the total reported incidents in the government sector. There are three interesting findings observed in the variations in the number of attacks from 2021 to 2022.

More Than Double Attacks Against India Making It Most Targeted Country in 2022

According to data gathered by CloudSEK’s contextual AI digital risk platform XVigil, in 2022 attacks on the Indian government intensified to the point where it became the country that was most frequently targeted in this sector. This expansion is the result of the hacktivist group Dragon Force Malaysia’s #OpIndia and #OpsPatuk campaigns. Numerous hacktivist groups joined and supported these campaigns, which laid the path for subsequent ones. However, this increase has other causes besides the growing hacktivism. Government agencies in India have become popular targets for extensive phishing campaigns.

China Emerges As The Most Targeted Country In 2021

The significant hike observed in the number of attacks targeting the Chinese government can be attributed to APT groups. Almost 96 percnet of attacks against China were initiated by the AgainstTheWest threat group under their campaign Operation Renminbi which began as retaliation to China’s activities against Taiwan and the Uyghur community. It is also speculated that conspiracy theories about China being responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19 may have contributed to the increase in attacks (for more information check the full report).

“XVigil data indicates that the number of attacks targeting the government sector has increased by 95 percent in the second half of 2022, as compared to the same period in 2021. About 40 percent of this growth is attributed to India, USA, Indonesia and China; which remained the top most targeted countries in both the years,” said a CloudSEK researcher.