Armis recently unveiled their The Anatomy of Cybersecurity: A Dissection of 2023's Attack Landscape report. The company feels these findings could serve as a blueprint to help security teams prioritize their efforts to reduce cyber risk exposure in 2024.
The report found that global attack attempts more than doubled in 2023, increasing 104%. Utilities (over 200% increase) and Manufacturing (165% increase) were the most at risk industries. Attack attempts peaked in July, with communications devices, imaging devices and manufacturing devices experiencing intensified targeting during this period.
“Armis found that not only are attack attempts increasing, but cybersecurity blind spots and critical vulnerabilities are worsening, painting prime targets for malicious actors,” said Nadir Izrael, CTO and Co-Founder, Armis. “It’s critical that security teams leverage similar intelligence defensively so that they know where to prioritize efforts and fill these gaps to mitigate risk."
Some the report's key findings include:
- Cyberwarfare grew more widespread in 2023. Top industries exposed to attack from Chinese and Russian actors were those within Manufacturing, Educational Services and Public Administration. In manufacturing, .cn and .ru domains contributed to an average of 30% of monthly attack attempts.
- Older Windows server OS versions (2012 and earlier) are 77% more likely to experience attack attempts compared to newer Windows Server versions. This vulnerability is particularly evident in the server environment, with nearly a quarter of server versions facing end-of-support (EoS) scenarios.
- 11% of manufacturers surveyed are still using end-of-life (EoL) or EoS OSs that are no longer actively supported or patched for vulnerabilities and security issues by the manufacturer.
- One-third of all devices are still not patched for Log4Shell.
- Irrespective of the weaponization status of a CVE, organizations consistently grapple with patch rates at 62% for non-weaponized and 61% for weaponized vulnerabilities.
