The evolving landscape during the first half of the year showed us all. ThreatMon’s 2024 Mid-Year Global Cyber Threat Report outlines a clear picture of the key threats, trends, and attacks that define the cyber landscape. This Report details the findings and incident timeline of the dark web, ransomware, and data breaches and subsequently lists the critical vulnerabilities that shrugged off the veil of the first half of 2022.
The report mentions that dark web activities, ransomware attacks, and data breaches significantly increased in three different sectors. Enveloping of manufacturing, health care, and finance sectors were among the main sectors that were involved in these cyberattacks. The manufacturing sector was the most targeted one by ransomware attacks. According to the report, data breaches were hugely increased in the healthcare and finance sectors.
This does not detract from the fact that it is still business as usual in the depths of the dark web: 750 critical incidents were identified in 2020 alone, ranging from the sale of data breaches, malware, and malicious insider data to RDP credential stuffing and unauthorized access to these compromised systems. For instance, the Charon Android botnet, an updated version of Ermac, showed signs of revived popularity.
Ransomware is also a persistent menace, with more than 2,500 incidents reported in the first half of 2024, a rise of 71 percent over the same period last year. The United States was the most-targeted country, with 820 incidents, and the groups going out on top were LockBit, RansomHub, and Play, in that order. LockBit was to blame for 67 percent of all incidents. The report points to the ‘overwhelming and substantive consequence’ of ransomware on US manufacturing, healthcare, and finance sectors.
Breaches were rampant, and in the first half of the year, more than 33 billion records were compromised. The largest was the ‘Mother of All Breaches’ (MOAB in January 2024, which exposed 26 billion records. Other notable breaches occurred at Snowflake, Bank of America, Trello, and 1,310 other major organizations.
The report also provides insights into the most critical vulnerabilities that were used by H1 2024 attackers, which are ranked in the top 10 list.
ThreatMon’s 2024 Mid-Year Global Cyber Threat Report delivers that all-important insight and comprehensive analysis into the ever-developing cyber threat landscape to help businesses provide context and direction as they safeguard their assets, data, and operations against malicious cyberattacks.
