May 2022 Cyber Attack Statistics

After the corresponding cyber attacks timelines (part I and part II), it’s time to publish the statistics of May 2022 once again, unsurprisingly, characterized by the events that are happening in Ukraine. In May I have Ascollected 223 events, perfectly in line with the results of April (when the total was 222 events.)

As always, Cyber Crime leads the Motivations chart with 70.4%, an important increase compared to 65.5% of April. Despite the value is growing, it is still lower than the average (around 80%) normally recorded before the Russian invasion in Ukraine. In particular, during May, the campaigns motivated by Cyber Espionage played a very important role (13.5% essentially in line with the 13.6% of April), at the expenses of Hacktivism that fell to 9.9% from 15%. On the other hand, Cyber Warfare shows a small increase to 4,5% from 4.1% in April.)

Malware continues to lead the Attack Techniques chart with 29.1% (it was 28,2%  in April, changing for the first time, the declining trend of the last months. Once again, account takeovers rank at second place among the known attack techniques with 15.2% (it was 14.1% in April): the phishing attacks against NFT collectors seem to be fruitful. And, the opposite of what happened in April, targeted attacks confirm their value at 10.3% (it was 1o.5% in April), and swap their place with vulnerabilities that slide at rank number four (among the known attack vectors) with 7.6% (down from 10.9%.)

There is no surprise in the Target Distribution chart, since it is led, once again, by attacks against multiple targets with 25.1% (it was 22.7% in April) ahead of healthcare organizations (yes the ransomware attacks are back) with 13.5%, a value similar to April when it was 13.9%. Governments rank at number three with 12.6% (down from 13.6% of April) and individuals (10.8% vs. 12.3%).

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