India is the most targeted country for cyber attacks: Cyfirma

India is facing the highest rate of cyber attacks, accounting for 13.7% of all cyberattacks globally, according to a report by Cyfirma, an external threat landscape management platform.

As per the India Threat Landscape report, which sheds light on the threats targeting India and strategies to counter them, the US witnessed 9.6% of cyberattacks, and Indonesia and China at 9.3% and 4.5% respectively. 

The findings showcase the significant surge in cyberattacks on government agencies in India. In the latter half of 2022, there was a 95% increase in cyberattacks targeting government agencies compared to the same period in 2021. 

The number of state-sponsored cyber attacks in India increased by more than 100% in 2022 compared to 2021. India was the most targeted country in 2022 as attacks on government agencies more than doubled.

“India’s growing prominence at the world stage and push from Western economies to favour India over other large countries, a young and tech-savvy population with low cybersecurity maturity has played a key role in hackers coming after critical assets, govt agencies with an intent to breach them and harm India’s strategic interests," said Kumar Ritesh, CEO & Founder, Cyfirma.

The report shows that healthcare is the most targeted sector by hackers followed closely by education, research, government and military sectors. In 2022, organisations in India faced an average of 1,866 cyberattacks per week.

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The most common cyber attack types in India include phishing attacks, malware attacks, and ransomware attacks. Data shows that 78% of Indian organisations experienced ransomware attacks in 2021, with 80% of those attacks leading to data encryption.

Between January and July, Cyfirma's external threat landscape monitoring and analysis detected 39 cyber campaigns targeting various industries in India, where known groups such as FancyBear, TA505, Mission 2025, Stone Panda, and Lazarus Group are suspected to be behind these campaigns. 

Notably, 14 of these campaigns are attributed to state-sponsored groups from China with espionage intentions, 11 were planned by North Korea-backed hackers as part of HaaS (Hacking as a Service), and 10 attacks were traced back to Russian threat actors, with only four being state-sponsored.