December 2021 Cyber Attacks Statistics

And after the corresponding timelines (part I and part II) I can finally publish the statistics related to the events collected during December 2021. Despite the Christmas break I have collected 217 events, corresponding to a nearly 10% increase compared with November.

Cyber crime continues to lead the Motivations chart, but for the second time in a row its percentage drops again to 74.2% from 80%. And once again the explanation resides in the growth of cyber espionage, fueled by the exploitation of vulnerabilities, which grows to 18% from 15% (that was already the higher number recorded so far.)

And easily predictable, the percentage of attacks carried out via malware continues to decrease even in the Attack Techniques chart. The percentage observed in December, 34.6%, is very close to the one of the previous mounth (35.5%) but still far from 49.2% of October. Malware leads the cart, but the exploitation of vulnerabilities jumps at number two among the known techniques (to 12.9% from 7%), while account takeovers slide at number three with 12.4% from 17%. It’s also worthwhille to notice the impact of fake social accounts (10.1%) due to the discovery of multiple cyber mercenary operations using the main social media platforms as their launchpad.

Last but not least, multiple targets lead the Target Distribution with 30.4% (from 25.5%), ahead of individuls (up to 17.5% from 11.5%, a consequence of the multiple surveillance operations unearthed in this month) and healthcare targets with 11.5% from 13.5% of November.)

Check out the interactive charts and the statistics, also available as an infographic.