The rising tide of cyber threats
Cybersecurity company Kaspersky has shared its latest threat landscape insights at an event held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Kaspersky experts discussed the evolution of the cyber threat landscape in the region during its 9th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2024, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The focal point of the discussions was the security of emerging technology trends such as AI, that are influencing the scale of modern threats. In parallel, threats targeting industrial control systems within critical infrastructure, in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia were also discussed. Kaspersky’s Cyber Immunity approach took centre stage as a way to create solutions that are virtually impossible to compromise and that minimise the number of potential vulnerabilities.
When looking at the threat landscape in the UAE, Kaspersky’s telemetry showed that the number of overall cyberthreats in the country decreased by 20 per cent in 2023 as compared to 2022. While attacks using social engineering tactics to scam people into revealing sensitive information, popularly known as phishing attacks increased by 70 per cent. Dissecting the threat landscape in the UAE further, between Q4 and Q3 of 2023, Kaspersky experts saw attacks using exploits that take advantage of a particular vulnerability in a system rise by 53 per cent. Ransomware attacks designed to encrypt a victim’s data, files, or system, making them accessible in exchange for a payment, increased by 86 per cent in the UAE. Spyware attacks which involve malicious software that infiltrates a user’s computer to gather and share data with third parties rose by 44 per cent. And backdoor attacks which allow users to bypass security and gain highlevel access increase by 55 per cent.
According to Kaspersky’s analysis, online threats caused by vulnerabilities on web pages, in emails or web services, have fluctuated significantly in the region. Turkiye saw the highest number of users affected by online threats (41.8 per cent), followed by Kenya (39.2 per cent), Qatar (38.8 per cent) and South Africa (35 per cent). Fewer users were affected in Oman (23.4 per cent) and Egypt (27.4 per cent) followed by Saudi Arabia (29.9 per cent) and Kuwait (30.8 per cent).
“In 2023, Kaspersky reported 6 per cent growth in B2B sales in the Middle East region and successfully blocked a total of 30 million threats in the UAE. Both these figures clearly show that organisations are determined to enhance their cybersecurity readiness in the view of growing sophisticated cyberthreats. Since education is key to raising cybersecurity awareness, we have partnered with several government entities such as The UAE Cyber Security Council to amplify our efforts across all sectors.”, added Rashed Al Momani, general manager at Kaspersky in the Middle East.