This year is a pivotal one for global politics and democracy, with over half of the world’s population participating in leadership elections, notably Russia, the EU, and the US. This has predictably translated into a serious increase in the number of cyberattacks targeting government organizations around the globe.
SonicWall has released its threat brief focusing on government organizations, and it found a shocking 236% year on year increase in malware-related attacks in Q1. The trend is particularly worrying when looking at the month leading up to the US election, which saw a 27% rise in attacks.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks this year are on track to surpass the previous by 32%, and SonicWall alone boasts a total of 12.9 million IP camera attacks prevented, which are often part of the DDoS process.
Undermining public trust
Governments, like everyone else, are increasingly reliant on digital services and online systems, which naturally creates vulnerabilities that threat actors will look to exploit.
“As attackers continue to attack critical government services and election-related systems, the importance of multi-layered cybersecurity measures cannot be overstated,” said Executive Director of Threat Research Doug McKee.
“In a rapidly evolving threat landscape, the stakes have never been higher. We must embrace cross-industry collaboration and threat intelligence information sharing to ensure the integrity of our electoral processes and protect our vital infrastructure from those seeking to exploit these systems,” he continued.
The US election in particular has been a popular target for foreign interference, with misinformation campaigns from Iranian, Russian, and Chinese threat actors looking to cause chaos amongst an already deeply divided public.
Earlier this year, Iranian hackers targeted high ranking members of the Trump campaign with a cyber attack which compromised some of its communications, proving how urgent the need for robust cybersecurity really is.
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