As we enter the last month of the year, we are seeing hackers putting in additional efforts into creating breaches leveraging the upcoming holiday season. Sectrio could uncover the sheer advancements in the sophistication of cyberattacks globally. One such incident was an advanced version of the phishing technique called reply-chain phishing targeted to bring down OT and IoT deployments. Read more on this from our blogs.
The December of 2021 is already bringing in a much higher influx of cyberattacks. The turmoil caused due to the emergence of a new COVID variant is fast turning into an opportunity for hackers to exploit the new confusion and anxiety that it has generated.
These efforts led to sophisticated cyberattacks in the Middle East and parts of Asia Pacific in the week ending 4th December. The significant rise in cyberattacks that we logged could be connected to an attempt by hackers to use the Omicron variant to achieve their nefarious objectives.
UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand were among the most-affected countries, with more than 45 percent of these attacks were targeted to disrupt and monetize operations in OT infrastructure across manufacturing, utilities, and maritime sectors. On the IoT front, smart cities, transport sectors, and the healthcare sector registered the maximum cyberattacks last week.
This is the fastest attempt we have registered at exploiting the emergence of a new variant since the start of the ongoing pandemic.
Stay updated on the latest elvolution in the cyber threat landscape form our IoT and OT Global threat landscape report
We advice all businesses to stay vigilant and be on the alert and ramp up their OT and IoT cybersecurity defense practices and be on their guard against potential ransomware attacks.
Weekly advisory
Segments under this list must be on high alert in the coming weeks:
- Healthcare
- Oil and gas
- Manufacturing
- Water and water treatment
- Utility entities
- Cryptocurrencies
- Government
- Maritime agencies
- Financial services