October 2015 Cyber Attacks Statistics

Last Updated on December 7, 2015

It’s time to aggregate the two timelines of October (Part I and Part II) into statistics.

As usual let’s start with the Country Distribution Chart, which, as usual, is dominated by the United States in all the three major sectors.

Two additional countries are also “well” positioned: TalkTalk, Vodafone and British Gas push the United Kingdom at number two in the cyber crime space, whereas India ranks at number three for cyber crime and is on top also if one considers the events executed in name of the declared cyber war between India and Pakistan.

Curiously both Australia and New Zealand emerge in cyber crime during the month of October.

The Daily Distribution Chart shows a sustained activity in the first week of the month and quite an heterogeneous pattern after that characterized by a final plateau.

Not surprisingly, cyber crime ranks on top of the  Motivations Behind Attacks chart with a percentage slightly decreasing in comparison to September (68% vs 72.6%). Hacktivism shows a two points decrease (14.7% vs 16.7% in September), whereas Cyber Espionage raises to 12% from 10.7% in September.

Targeted attacks lead the chart of the known Attack Techniques with 18.7% (was 17.9% in September), ahead of Defacements and SQLi, both of them with 12% (were respectively 10.7% and 20.2% in August).

The Distribution of Targets chart confirms the industrial sector on top, soaring at 38.7% (nearly as much as twice in comparison to 20.2% reported in September). Governments rank at number two with 18.7%, substantially at the same level of September (was 17.9%). Organizations complete the podium with 8% (was 6% in September).

E-Commerce ranks on top of the Industry Drill Down chart (20.7%), ahead of Telco (13.8%), Financial Services, Retail and News (all at 10.3%).  Non-profit leads the chart of the Organization Drill Down

As usual, the sample must be taken very carefully since it refers only to discovered attacks included in my timelines, aiming 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, 2013, 2014 and now 2015 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics.

Of course follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates, andfeel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).