Australia was the most attacked country for the week ending July 11. Sectors targeted include healthcare, manufacturing, power grids, government agencies and educational institutions. Cyberattacks rose 11 percent this week after a 7 percent decline in the week before and data from our honeypot networks shows a significant rise in attacks across North America, Europe and Indo-Pacific.
Attacks with geo-political motivations rose significantly this week as we were able to record the activities of almost 27 APT groups. A random survey of malware shops and forums across the dark web and on surface web revealed that as many as 7 old variants of common malware such as Mirai, Locker, Triton and many others have been removed from these sites. Such variants may have been retired because the number of malware variants being engineered has witnessed a huge spike in 2020 rendering old variants redundant.
Weekly advisory
We expect the attacks on these sectors to grow this week
- Healthcare
- Power grids
- Government websites and agencies – especially lawmakers and government agencies connected with internal/homeland security
- Manufacturing plants and maritime agencies
- Defense establishments
- Utility entities
- Financial services