A new report by Cyber Security firm CloudSEK has released some shocking details. As per the report, there has been a 95% rise in cyberattacks in the government sector. This report cites data for the latter half of 2022.
India is on the list with other countries like China, the USA, and Indonesia. These countries are the most targeted countries of cyberattacks in the past two years. Only these four countries account for 40% of total cyberattacks on government sectors around the globe.
Campaigns by Cyber Attackers
The attacks became so frequent that they became one of the most targeted sectors among cyber attackers. As per the report, the expansion is a result of activities by the Malaysian Dragon Force group. They made campaigns like #OpIndia and #OpsPatuk campaigns.
These campaigns got support from other hackers too. These hacktivists made plans for the following campaigns too. Apart from these campaigns, there are many other reasons for such attacks.
Possible causes of these Cyberattacks
Indian government agencies are a preferred target for phishing campaigns. Despite modern technology, China was the most targeted country in 2021. In the case of China, the APT groups have caused this rise. As per speculations, even the theories blaming China for the outbreak of covid-19 were done by these hackers.
The main motive for cyberattacks was to extract data. Consequently, the data is used for monetary gains. Also, there are other reasons. For instance, the campaigns by hacktivists and APT groups are not for financial gains.
Popular Targets of Cyber Attacks
In the case of India, AIIMs was the popular target. It became a target for a massive ransomware attack. This crippled and hampered its network for multiple days. On the other hand, the data of 30 million travellers registered under Indian Railways was hacked. Moreover, the data was put on sale over the Dark Web later.
Even the Twitter handle of the Ministry of Jal Shakti (Water Resources) was hacked twice. This was the case in December. Alongside, a fake crypto giveaway scam was posted on the account.
Summing up,
The year 2022, saw a massive rise in cyberattacks and hacktivist activities. Almost 9% of the recorded incidents were against the government sectors. Even ransomware groups were active all this while.
