October 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics

Last Updated on May 24, 2015

Time has come for the October 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics. As usual they summarize in an analytic form the findings contained in the October 2013 Cyber Attacks timelines (part I and part II) and aim to provide a snapshot of the landscape related to Cyber Attacks reported in the news.

Let us begin with the Daily Trend of Attacks. The October graph shows quite a constant trend with two peaks around the 3 and (most of all) the 16.

As usual, the US lead the Country Distribution Chart. India (4%) ranks at number two, a consequence of the continuous cyber attacks by Pakistani hackers, while Israel and UK (3%) are on an equal footing at the third place.

The Motivations Behind Attacks chart shows a clear predominance of Cyber Crime (63%), in net growth compared with the 44% of September. Hacktivism ranks at number two, and obviously in net decrease in comparison with 33% of the previous month. Apparently I have recorded no operations related to Cyber Warfare.

The Distribution of Attack Techniques confirms Defacement at number one with 27.2%. DNS Hijacking (9.8%) is for the first time in the podium at number three, while DDoS and SQLi, used to be steadily in the higher positions, are respectively at number four (8.7%) and five (7.6%), immediately ahead of Account Hijacking (5,4%) in net decrease in comparison with 20% of the previous month.

Nothing surprising for the Distribution of Targets chart, which confirms governments at number one (23.9%), and industries at number two (16.3%). Targets belonging to Organizations complete the podium with 8.7%. Drilling down to industry fragmentation, software companies clearly lead the chart with 40%.

As usual, please bear in mind that the sample must be taken very carefully since it refers only to discovered attacks, published in the news, and included in my timelines. The sample cannot be exhaustive but only aims to provide an high level overview of the “cyber landscape”.

If you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).