Cyberattack numbers driven by ransomware gangs
Check Point Research (CPR) says that these cyberattacks were driven by smaller, more agile hackers and ransomware gangs. The cybercriminals focused on exploiting collaboration tools used in work-from-home environments and targeted education institutions that shifted to online learning post-Covid-19.
“Hackers like to target hospitals because they perceive them as short on cyber security resources with smaller hospitals particularly vulnerable, as they are underfunded and understaffed to handle a sophisticated cyberattack,” said Omer Dembinsky, Data Group Manager at Check Point Software.
In November, India’s leading government healthcare institution was targeted by a ransomware attack, which reportedly originated from China.
“The healthcare sector is so lucrative to hackers as they aim to retrieve health insurance information, medical records numbers, and sometimes, even social security numbers with direct threats from ransomware gangs to patients, demanding payment under threats of having patient records released,” he added.
After the AIIMS attack, authorities feared that the data of crores of patients, including VIPs such as former prime ministers, ministers, bureaucrats and judges had been compromised, however, the data was decrypted, investigating IT authorities announced.
Global cyberattacks ‘all-time high’
Moreover, the reports revealed that the global volume of cyberattacks reached an all-time high in Q4, with an average of 1168 weekly attacks per organisation. Furthermore, healthcare is followed by education/research and government/military in second and third spots, respectively, in terms of most attacked industries in 2022.
The report also said that AI technologies like ChatGPT, which are available to the public, can be used by hackers to generate malicious code and emails at a faster, more automated pace. In a previous note, a team of researchers from Check Point Research illustrated how hackers may use ChatGPT AI chatbot for writing malicious codes and phishing emails.
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