Major Cyber Attacks of 2022

SPICEJET, MICROSOFT, TOYOTA, NVIDIA, NEWS CORP, THE RED CROSS, AND THE COSTA RICA GOVERNMENT:?WHAT DO THESE ENTITIES HAVE IN COMMON ?

The answer is that they all suffered cyber- attacks in 2022 that impacted their operations.

A Spate of High Profile Attacks

In May 2022, an attempted ransomware attack on Indian airline SpiceJet in May impacted an entire morning’s flight schedules before it could be thwarted (source: Times of India ). For Toyota , the hacking into of a key supplier’s systems led to a production halt in 14 of its Japanese plants. This was followed by separate ransomware attacks on its German and US suppliers, all three attacks occurring within February and March of this year(source: Reuters ). Around the same time, hacking group Lapsus$ targeted Microsoft and compromised many of its important products like Bing and Cortana (source: Microsoft ). ?Lapsus$ also attacked Nvidia, the largest semiconductor chip company in the world, claiming to have stolen 1TB of company data (source: Bloomberg ). Around the same time,?global media and news giant News Corp was hacked and emails with sensitive information stolen from its journalists (source: Reuters ).

And nor was all this restricted to businesses alone. Even the Red Cross was not spared. In January 2022, one of its contractors was attacked and half a million records , including “highly vulnerable” ones, were compromised. ?The Red Cross had to take servers offline in response (source: ICRC ).

Perhaps the most striking case is that of the Costa Rica government. ?Separate ransomware attacks - ?first in April on its finance ministry that impacted government services and the export-import sector, the second in May targeting its social security fund and disrupting the healthcare system - led to a state of emergency being declared. This was the first time ever that a national emergency had been imposed anywhere due to a cyber-attack (source: Reuters ). ?????

Cybercrime is on the Rise – and Nobody is Immune

These are only a handful of cases among the thousands that have occurred around the world in recent years. Cybercrime is one of the greatest threats today to societies, governments and businesses alike. It cost the world US$ 6 trillion in 2020 and that cost is projected to grow 15% each year! No wonder spending on cybersecurity is estimated at US$ 1 trillion today – and growing equally rapidly.

When the largest corporations and entire sovereign nations and governments are vulnerable to cyberattacks and cybercrime, even large organizations , not to mention smaller ones, are not safe in today’s hyperconnected world.

The message is clear: cybersecurity is not an option for businesses any longer – it is an imperative for survival today !

If there is one must-attend webinar for your business, it is this one.

Our cybersecurity experts will talk about all this and more in our webinar on Cyber Hacking on 22 July at 11:00 AM. They will explain crucial topics such as, among others, what the different types of threats are, how phishing works, how malware is uploaded in your systems, and how to protect your systems.

Join us on 22 July at 11:00 AM - and help keep your business safe!

Click here to register for the webinar.