Darktrace, a global leader in cyber security artificial intelligence, released three new cyber-threat trend reports revealing 2022 attack data observed across its global customer fleet.1 The industry reports pertain to the energy, healthcare, and retail sectors respectively.
“These industry-specific reports are the first of their kind released by Darktrace, representing an important effort to surface the data underpinning the rapidly evolving threat landscape that we are defending against,” commented Toby Lewis, Global Head of Threat Analysis, Darktrace.
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“The trends reveal crucial sector-specific challenges, from the tendency for hackers to siphon off the energy sector’s resources in the form of crypto-jacking, through to the invaluable nature of patient data which leads to data exfiltration in the healthcare sector,” commented Lewis. “The surge in credential-based attacks across the retail sector reflects the fact that identity theft will be a key trend for 2023, increasing the need for AI-based behavioral analytics for understanding employee actions in rich context and authenticating the actions taken using certain credentials.”
Energy Sector: Key Findings
Against the backdrop of a global energy crisis, Darktrace‘s energy sector report reveals that illegal crypto-mining threats,whereby bad actors steal energy and processing power from other devices and networks, are on the rise across the industry. Notable findings include:
- High-priority crypto-mining accounted for 13 times more of all observed cyber incidents in the UK energy sector in 2022 compared to 2021
- High-priority crypto-mining accounted for 3 times more of all observed cyber incidents in the US energy sector in 2022 compared to 2021
The report divulges two real-world crypto-mining threat finds from a European and US energy organization respectively, which were both stopped by Darktrace’s AI technology. In the former case, attackers were caught attempting to mass pool crypto-mining capabilities using 5 internal servers at the organization.
Retail Sector: Key Findings
As online shopping remains popular, Darktrace’s retail sector report reveals that over the course of 2022, criminals increasingly turned toward credential theft, spoofing and stuffing to target this multi-billion-dollar industry’s online infrastructure. Notably:
- Credential theft, spoofing and stuffing accounted for over 170% more of all observed cyber incidents in the US retail sector in 2022 compared to 2021
- Credential theft, spoofing and stuffing accounted for over 14% more of all observed cyber incidents in the UK retail sector in 2022 compared to 2021
- Credential theft, spoofing and stuffing accounted for over 70% more of all observed cyber incidents in the Australian retail sector in 2022 compared to 2021
SOURCE: PR Newswire