GoI faced more cyber attacks in 2022 than any other govt, says report

With the number of cyber attacks against the government doubling in 2022, India was the most-targeted country in this sector in 2022, a report revealed on Friday. 13.7 per cent of all the cyber attacks were against Indian entities.

“In 2022, attacks on the Indian government intensified to the point where it became the country that was most frequently targeted in this sector,” a report released by CloudSEK XVigil research said.

The jump in the attacks was mainly attributed to Dragon Force Malaysia’s #OpIndia and #OpsPatuk campaigns. “Numerous hacktivist groups joined and supported these campaigns, which laid the path for subsequent ones. Government agencies in India have become popular targets of extensive phishing campaigns,” it said.

Globally, in the second half of 2022, there was a 95 per cent jump in the attacks against the government sector. Forty per cent of the total attacks were against India, USA, Indonesia and China.

“Cyber attacks on government entities could lead to the exposure of sensitive data, financial loss for the state, often in the form of ransom payments and recovery costs, and even widespread panic and misinformation,” the report said.

The biggest threat actor in 2022 was KelvinSecurity which operates under the handle “Kristina”. It was the second-biggest threat actor in 2021.

“The group doesn’t shy away from attention and publicly shares information such as new exploits, targets, and databases on cybercrime forums and communication channels such as Telegram,” the report said.

The main reason for the rise in cyber attacks has been the rapid digitisation in the government sector. This has been especially rapid since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to CloudSEK XVigil, this provides the threat actors with a large attack surface and makes it easier for hostile actors to launch cyber warfare.

Moreover, the motive of cyber attacks has also changed over the years. Apart from monetary benefits, the report highlighted that there had been an increase in “hacktivist activity”. Hacktivist is made from “hacking” and “activist” and denotes hacking for politically or socially motivated reasons.

“The year 2022 saw a significant increase in hacktivist activity, which accounted for about 9 per cent of the recorded incidents reported in the government sector,” it said.

There was also a rise in ransomware attacks, and LockBIT was the most prominent ransomware operator.