Positive Technologies: the number of attacks on IT companies through spyware has increased

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the number of cyber incidents as a whole decreased by 5% compared to the previous quarter, although it still remained quite high – 15% more than in the same period of 2021, according to Positive Technologies, a developer of cybersecurity solutions.

In particular, IT companies aroused the interest of cybercriminals: the number of attacks against them increased by 18% over the quarter, while in 62% of cases hackers used malicious software, mainly ransomware, aimed at stealing confidential information and obtaining ransom.

These attacks are beneficial to attackers, since the compromise of an IT company may subsequently allow an attack on its customers – users of products and services, explains Positive Technologies.

At the same time, the company notes, hackers prefer to attack users through instant messengers and social networks. Thus, in the fourth quarter, 19% of attacks were directed at users on social networks, and messengers and SMS messages were used in 17% of cases of social engineering, which is two percentage points (p.p.) more than in the third quarter. And social networks were used by hackers a quarter earlier less often by 1 p.p.

“Most of the attacks on social networks and messengers are aimed at collecting credentials and hacking accounts, and compromised accounts are used to further attacks on users,” the company explained.

Also, according to Positive Technologies, the fourth quarter was marked by high-profile data leaks that were stolen as a result of cyber attacks on various organizations. Malefactors in the attacks to the organizations were more often guided by stealing of personal data (38%) and trade secrets (20%). For example, the NLB hacker group made publicly available a database dump with information about 400,000 bookings and personal data of 900,000 Level.Travel tourists – the leak contained full names, contact details, IP addresses, and passport information (see Kommersant dated December 15, 2022 of the year).

Tatyana Isakova