Organisations are increasingly turning to managed service providers as 2023 proved to be a year of volatile, adaptive and creative digital threats, according to the 2024 SonicWall Annual Cyber Threat Report.
Threat actors continued to be relentless in cyberattacks, leaving organisations looking for an added layer of defense, with MSPs being relied upon to alleviate pressure on IT departments.
Overall intrusion numbers climbed, totalling almost 1 billion more attempts, compared to the year before. Global cryptojacking volume rose 659% and encrypted threat jumped 117%, as threat actors opted for less risky means of malicious activities.
Managed services have emerged as a solution that provide organisations with an additional human-layer of defence, addressing alert fatigue and freeing up resources and time for core business functions.
“It has become clear that conventional network security isn't enough. Security professionals need assistance to cope with the overwhelming volume of cyberattacks and protect from the endpoint to the cloud. Especially as the cloud becomes an indispensable reality for businesses, the role of MSPs is shifting from technical maintenance to raising the bar on their customers' security posture,” said SonicWall President and Chief Executive Officer Bob VanKirk.
Evolved, Diversified Attack Vector
Cybercriminals are adapting their abilities to gain access to critical infrastructure, making the threat landscape even more complex. The second half of 2023 saw increased ransomware activity (+27%) and a variety of other attacks have trended, including on internet of things devices, intrusion attempts and encrypted threats.
While overall ransomware numbers saw a 36% decline annually, activity peaked during the summer months (+37%). Ransomware volumes in Asia hit a record high in 2023, rising to 17.5 million, a 1,627% increase since 2019. This increase was spearheaded by attacks on the financial sector.
In 2023, SonicWall recorded 6.06 billion malware attacks, an year-over-year increase of 11%. This marked the highest global attack volume for any year since 2019, indicating that malware levels have risen back to their pre-pandemic levels. Malware targeting healthcare and retail rose 20%, and attacks targeting government increased 38%.
Overall intrusion attempts climbed to 7.6 trillion in 2023, a 20% increase over 2022's total. Malicious intrusion volumes rose 47% for finance, 46% for government and 36% for healthcare sectors.
With regard to IoT exploits, global volume rose 15%. As connected devices continue to rapidly increase, bad actors are targeting weak points of entry as potential attack vectors into organisations.
Another quieter approach chosen by bad actors in 2023 was encrypted threats, which spiked 117% globally, totalling 15.7 million. Healthcare (252%), education (429%), government (629%) and retail (680%) saw encrypted threats rising sharply in 2023.
SonicWall identified 293,989 never-before-seen malware variants in 2023. The threat landscape remained complex, with almost 800 strains of new variants discovered each day.
While ransomware continues to be a threat, SonicWall experts expect a broader set of actions in 2024, specifically targeting small and medium businesses, governments and the enterprise.
“Today's organisations demand an integrated approach for end-to-end managed threat protection, enabling MSPs to help customers navigate the cybersecurity landscape with confidence and resilience,” said Michael Crean, SonicWall executive vice president of managed security services.
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