UAE sets cybersecurity benchmark with lowest infection rates in the region
Acronis recently published the findings of its ‘Mid-Year Cyberthreats Report, From Innovation to Risk: Managing the Implications of AI-driven Cyberattacks’.
The comprehensive study, based on data captured from more than one million global endpoints, provides insight into the evolving cybersecurity landscape and uncovers the growing utilization of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as ChatGPT, by cybercriminals to craft malicious content and execute sophisticated attacks.
“The volume of threats in 2023 has surged relative to last year, a sign that criminals are scaling and enhancing how they compromise systems and execute attacks,” stressed Candid Wüest, Vice President, Research, Acronis.
“To address the dynamic threat landscape, organizations need agile, comprehensive, unified security solutions that provide the necessary visibility to understand attacks, simplify context, and provide efficient remediation of any threat, whether it may be malware, system vulnerability, and everything in between,” he added.
Heightened attacks in MENA region
According to the report, phishing is the primary method criminals use to unearth login credentials. In the first half of 2023 alone, the number of email-based phishing attacks has surged 464% when compared to 2022. Over the same frame, there has also been a 24% increase in attacks per organization.
Regionally, the number of Malware detections in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Kuwait as of May 2023 had experienced an infection rate of 11% each and a global ranking of 25 and 27 respectively. The UAE reported a 10% infection rate over the same period, ranking globally at position 31.
Regarding blocked URLs, Kuwait topped the region at 30%, ranking at position 2 globally while Egypt and KSA ranked at positions 7 and 14, having registered 15% and 14%, respectively. On its part, the UAE had the least number of blocked URLs, registering only 8% and ranking at position 30 globally.
The cyberattack landscape is evolving
Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated in their attacks, using AI and existing ransomware code to drill deeper into victims’ systems and extract sensitive information. AI-created malware is adept at avoiding detection in traditional antivirus models and public ransomware cases have exploded relative to last year, the report continued.
Acronis-monitored endpoints are picking up valuable data about how these cybercriminals operate and recognizes how some attacks have become more intelligent, sophisticated, and difficult to detect.
Drawing from extensive research and analysis, key findings from the report include:
• Acronis blocked almost 50 million URLs at the endpoint in Q1-2023, a 15% increase over Q4-2022.
• There were 809 explicitly mentioned ransomware cases in Q1-2023, with a 62% spike in March over the monthly average of 270 cases.
• In Q1-2023, 30.3% of all received emails were spam and 1.3% contained malware or phishing links.
• Each malware sample lives an average of 2.1 days in the wild before it disappears. 73% of samples were only seen once.
• Public AI models are proving an unwitting accomplice for criminals looking for source code vulnerabilities, creating attacks and developing fraud prevention-thwarting attacks like deep fakes.
Breaches demonstrate major security concerns
Traditional cybersecurity methods and lack of action let attackers in, the report shares:
• There is a lack of strong security solutions in place that can detect zero-day vulnerability exploitations.
• Organizations often fail to update vulnerable software in a timely manner, long after a fix becomes available.
• Linux servers face inadequate protection against the cybercriminals who are increasingly going after them.
• Not all organizations follow proper data backup protocol, including the 3-2-1 rule.
