According to a recent report by IBM, the Asia-Pacific region remains the most attacked region in the world for the second consecutive year. In 2022, the region accounted for 31% of all incidents remediated globally. Manufacturing was the most attacked industry in the region, accounting for 48% of cases, followed by finance and insurance at second place with 18% of cases.

The report also revealed that backdoors emerged as the top action by attackers, accounting for 31% of cases, followed by ransomware at 13%. The majority of backdoor attempts observed globally were failed ransomware attempts, with defenders detecting the backdoor before ransomware was deployed. This rise in backdoor deployments can be partially attributed to their high market value, with threat actors selling existing backdoor access for as much as $10,000 compared to stolen credit card data, which can sell for less than $10 today.

“The shift towards detection and response has allowed defenders to disrupt adversaries earlier in the attack chain - tempering ransomware’s progression in the short term,” said Charles Henderson, Head of IBM Security X-Force.

Viswanath Ramaswamy, Vice President, Technology, IBM India & South Asia, warned that businesses in Asia-Pacific, including India, will continue to face a growing number and sophistication of cyber threats as bad actors take advantage of economic and geopolitical disruptions. Therefore, it is imperative that business leaders take immediate action to prepare and secure against these malicious threats.

The report also highlighted that the most common impact from cyberattacks in 2022 was extortion, which was primarily achieved through ransomware or business email compromise attacks. Thread hijacking also saw a significant rise in 2022, with attackers using compromised email accounts to reply within ongoing conversations posing as the original participant. X-Force observed the rate of monthly attempts increase by 100% compared to 2021 data.

The report is based on data collected by IBM globally in 2022 and aims to inform the security community about the threats most relevant to their organisations.