Evolving cyber threat tactics keeping businesses and individuals alike on their toes

The burgeoning cybercrime marketplace offering Cybercrime-as-a-Service has not only made it easier for even less technically-minded criminals to engage with cybercrimes, it created a perfect breeding ground too for malicious actors and organized cybercrime groups to exploit unsuspecting businesses and individuals

- Soma Tah & Ashok Pandey

From 2020 onwards, when the lines between digital and physical worlds started blurring increasingly by the growing adoption of digital during the pandemic, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and cyber security failure have also started emerging as top risks globally.

The expanded attack surface caused a massive increase in cyber threats. New industries, platforms, and processes have been targeted by the miscreants leaving consumers as well as businesses alike at risks of being held hostage.

The growing business model of Cybercrime-as-a-Service makes malicious activities more affordable and easily accessible for anyone, while the increasing sophistication of tools makes detection and prosecution of cybercrimes even more difficult.

Surfshark's study revealed that 4 in 1M Indian internet users have been a victim of cybercrimes in 2020, ranking India 10th in the world in terms of cybercrime density. The FBI received almost 3,000 complaints during the year from India, ranging from romance scams to ransomware attacks.

In its global incident response analysis for the first half of 2021, Accenture Security found that there's a triple-digit increase in intrusion volume driven by three trends- 1) global uptick in web shell activity by way of nation-state and cybercrime actors alike, 2) targeted ransomware and extortion operations and 3) supply chain intrusions.

How threat actors and the expanded attack surfaces are likely to hurt us in 2022?

Although Financial services, Government, ICT, Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Education have been the most targeted industries during the pandemic, but as the pandemic starts to subside and the world returns to normal, it can turn the spotlight again on 'dormant' industries such as Consumer Goods & Services, Industrials, Travel & Hospitality and Retailalready reeling from lockdowns and staff shortages.