FireEye says that Cyber Attacks in UK and Ireland Increased by 300% in 2013

UKI (United Kingdom and Ireland) enterprises were struck by an average of over 70 new tainted infections a day last year (2013), which symbolizes a 300% raise in enterprise hits across the region when judged against 2012 statistics, says FireEye in its 'Regional Advanced Threat Report' launched recently.

On a daily basis in the last quarter of 2013, in excess of 130 unique infections of enterprises were recognized, with 45% of the year's infectivity occurring during this last quarter.

According to data of around 40,000 cyber attacks around the world, UK was one of the top 10 nations exposed to APT (advanced persistent threat) attacks.

UK along with France and Thailand ranked fourth in the world with 12 unique verticals hit.

The APT malware families such as Backdoor.LV, Taidoor and PingBed accounted for 37% of APT attacks launched in 2013.

Throughout the world, government, energy (including utilities and petroleum refining), financial services and higher learning were the most embattled verticals.

Maximum computer infectivity was discovered in financial services, telecommunications, energy (including utilities and petroleum refining), health, pharmacy and higher education.

Siliconrepublic.com published news on 30th April, 2014 quoting a comment on the increased infection rates by Paul Davis, Vice-President of FireEye, Europe as saying that since financial and telecom operations are principal drivers of markets in UK and Ireland, sophisticated threat actors have numerous high-value targets to hit in both the nations. Combine this with initiation of hi-tech across all industries makes it obvious why there has been such radical increase in attacks since the start of 2013."

Infosecurity-magazine.com published a statement on 30th April, 2014 quoting a comment on the report by Paul Jackson, Regional Sales Director of FireEye for UKI as "we have been stating for years that more than 95% of businesses inadvertently host compromised PCs within their corporate networks. We have evaluated and have recognized all types of threat actors compromising our networks of patrons: nation state, cyber crooks, activists and amateurs alike. Well-funded threat actors have attuned their techniques from generic, opportunistic and scattershot to targeted, resilent and evasive."

» SPAMfighter News - 5/10/2014