SonicWall releases the 2024 SonicWall Mid-Year Cyber Threat Report, researched and compiled by SonicWall Capture Labs, which unveils yet another rise in overall attacks, after seeing an 11% increase observed in 2023. The report details the evolving threat landscape over the first five months of this year, highlighting the persistent, relentless and escalating nature of cyber threats globally.
This report has been built with SonicWall’s partners in mind, and much like SonicWall itself, has undergone a significant transformation. The report has evolved in how it measures critical cyberthreat data to include time as a factor. It also highlights the latest trends that are impacting our partners and the customers they serve, and for the first time the report ties attacks to tangible business impact, including potential revenue risk.
“As threat actors continue to add more efficient and sophisticated tactics, we knew the threat report had to evolve to suit our partners and customer’s needs,” says SonicWall president and CEO Bob VanKirk. “The report is current and includes timely trends and provides our partners, MSPs, MSSPS and customers with actionable intelligence to help them create and implement strategies to help their customers combat these threats whether new or old.”
Key Takeaways:
- SonicWall intelligence found that on average, companies were under critical attack – the type of attack most likely to deplete business resources - for 1,104 hours out of 880 work hours. That means that customers were shielded from a potential 46 days of business downtime in just the first five months of 2024, protecting 12.6% of total revenues and defending against potentially devastating intrusions.
The report provides insight on a range of threats, including:
- Malware – Total global malware volume rose 30% in the first half of 2024, seeing a massive 92% increase in May alone.
- Ransomware – Ransomware is trending up with an increase of +15% in NOAM and a resounding +51% in LATAM, but EMEA is pulling the global numbers down, logging a -49% decrease.
- IoT Malware – IoT attacks rose by 107%, with affected devices averaging 52.8 hours under attack. Additionally, 15% of all malwares now uses software packing as its main MITRE TTP.
- Cryptojacking – After a record-breaking year, Cryptojacking dropped 60%. Most of the globe saw a decrease, with the exception of India, which saw a staggering 409% increase.
