Indian companies face cyber attacks three times more than the global average, according to a report from Check Point Research.
The Israel-based cybersecurity firm writes that a single unnamed Indian company has been attacked a whopping 1,565 times per week against the global average of 474 attacks per firm in the last six months.
275 million records leaked
According to the report, one of the major malicious attacks was on the Kundankulam Nuclear Power Plant, which is the largest nuclear power plant in India.
Back in May 2019, data extraction malware hit the external network of the plant, an “unprotected MongoDB database,” exposing over 275 million records of Indian users.
The database included personal information of people such as names, e-mails, mobile numbers, and more. Experts linked the attack to the North Korean group Lazarus, citing the report.
Biggest threat
The report also mentions the malicious crypto-mining software “XMRig” as the biggest perpetrator against the Indian firms, impacting 17% of the total Indian organizations in question.
In fact, the cybersecurity firm noted that there is an increase in the number of crypto-mining attacks globally, despite the cryptocurrency’s fall in value in the last year. Crypto-miners attacked over 38% of companies compared to 37% in 2018.
The research also notes that botnet activity has increased by over 50% from 2018, and Emotnet was used primarily for DDoS attacks and other means to steal personal data.
In order to avoid such attacks, the research recommends that companies should be pro-active instead of merely relying on third-party security products.
