Last Updated on December 30, 2018
It’s time to publish the statistics derived from the cyber attack timelines of October (Part I and Part II): this month I have collected a total of 113 events, a slight increase compared with September, when I collected 106 events.
The Daily Trend of Events chart, shows an irregular trend, with a peak during the first week, an apparent break in the middle of the month, and other scattered peaks in the second half.
Unsurprisingly, Cyber Crime leads the Motivations Behind Attacks chart, but its “market share” falls below the the psychological threshold of 80%, nearly ten points less than September, and back to values comparable to August. Cyber Espionage hits 12.4% from 9.4%), while the events in Italy push Hacktivism at 5.3%, ahead of Cyber Warfare, which closes the chart with 4.4%.
Malware is stable on top of the Attack Vectors chart, but its percentage falls to 28.3% from 43.4% in September. For the second month in a row, targeted attacks rank at number two among the known attack vectors with 14.2% (it was 17% in September). Account Hijackings rank at number three with 12.4%, but it’s equally important to notice the impact of vulnerabilities within the attack vectors.
October confirms single individuals on top of the Distribution of Targets chart with 23.9% (it was 19.8% in September). Governments rank at number two with 15% (it was 10.4% in September), sharing the silver medal with multiple targets (down from 19.8% of September).
As always, bear in mind that the sample refers exclusively to the 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, 2015, 2016, and 2017 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and of course follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates, and feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).
