Tech Republic: “New research from NCC Group and Abnormal Security shows clouds and a bit of silver to line them: Ransomware attacks declined last year, but business email compromises increased — massively for smaller businesses — and a third of toxic emails got through their human gateways. According to risk management firm NCC Group, there was a 5% drop in ransomware attacks last year — from 2,667 attacks in 2021 to 2,531 attacks in 2022 — although between February and April there was an uptick due to LockBit activity during the Russia-Ukraine war. In its just-released 2022 Annual H1 Threat Monitor, which follows incidents identified by its managed detection and response service and global cyber incident response team, the NCC Group reported:

• The Industrials sector was the most targeted by criminal gangs for a second year running.
• North America (44% of attacks) and Europe (35%) were the most targeted regions.
• There were 230,519 DDoS events across 2022 with 45% targeted at the U.S., 27% of which occurred in January.
• LockBit was responsible for 33% of the ransomware attacks (846) monitored by NCC

According to NCC Group, the most targeted sectors in 2022 were: industrials, with 804 organizations hit, constituting 32% of attacks; consumer cyclicals, attacked 487 times for 20% of attacks; and the technology sector, targeted 263 times for 10% of all attacks. Notably, hotels and entertainment enterprises, specialty retailers, homebuilding and construction supply retailers, and financial services dominated cyclicals targets. Meanwhile, software and IT services were the most targeted sector within technology…”