BEC attacks spike, report finds

More than one-third of cyberattacks during the first six months of 2022 were business email compromise attacks, with incidents rising by nearly twofold between the first and second quarter, reports SiliconAngle. Significant increases in BEC attacks were observed in the finance and insurance, business services, government, and legal sectors, with 80% of organizations impacted by BECs lacking multi-factor authentication, according to a report from Arctic Wolf Networks. The findings also showed that median ransomware demands reached $450,000 during the first half of 2022, with significantly higher demands for the technology and shipping/logistics sectors, most likely due to those industries' lacking network organization and backup practices. Moreover, most attacks were attributed to external vulnerability or remote desktop protocol exposure. "The first six months of 2022 were filled with unprecedented international geopolitical strife and economic uncertainty, but even with these global events, threat actors continued cybercrimes against organizations of all sizes," said the report.