Why the spike in 2023 cyberattacks?

Major companies, government agencies, hospitals, and banks were noted by CrowdStrike to have experienced 51% more ransomware attacks through November, while data extortion victims during the first three quarters of 2023 were observed by Orange Cyberdefense to have exceeded the entirety of last year, which was noted to have a lull in cyberattacks due to the Russia-Ukraine war, reports BNN Bloomberg. "A lot of time was spent attacking Ukraine or Russia, but the war has been going on so long, these guys are like, 'we have to make money again,' so they're back doing their financially-motivated attacks," said Trend Micro Vice President of Threat Intelligence Jon Clay. While governments have been bolstering efforts to crack down on cyberattacks, with the U.S. beginning the implementation of four-day breach disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission, evolving threat operations remain a significant challenge. "Every day we are getting more attackers at a speed the industry has never encountered before. The more skilled attackers go after the higher-tier targets these are still primarily Russian and now you also have medium-tier attackers going after the tier below," said Halcyon co-founder and CEO Jon Miller.