Attackers persistently adapted their email-based techniques throughout 2022, cycling through new and old tactics in the hopes of evading human and cyber security measures.

CyberEdge’s annual Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR) plays a unique role in the IT security industry. Other surveys do a great job of collecting statistic on cyberattacks and data breaches and exploring the techniques of cybercriminals and other bad actors. Our mission is to provide deep insight into the minds of IT security professionals.

In this edition, we again focus on concentration of malicious activity by the same six categories we studied in the last edition in the Fall of 2021. We expect that some criteria will remain relevant over the foreseeable future; that is, as datapoints related to domain names, there are unlikely to become less forensically-valuable unless that internets fundamental structure changes. Other datapoints may wax and wane in relevance.

The purpose of this research is to understand the risks created by the cybersecurity gap between the corporate office and executives’ protection at home. According to 42% of respondents, their key executives and family members have already experienced at least one attack by a cybercriminal.

In this report, Perception Point analyzes the most pervasive attacks its advanced threat detection platform detected in 2022, noting a particular increase in account takeover attacks in the latter half of the year as well as an ongoing growth in phishing attacks. This report examines cyber threats through distinct lenses based on the intelligence gathered by Perception Point’s proprietary detection engines and its managed incident response service.

Our annual State of the Phish report explores end-user security awareness, resilience and risk across 15 countries (eight more than in previous years). The report benchmarks understanding of common cyber threats and defensive tactics and reveals how potential gaps in knowledge and cyber hygiene enable the real-world attack landscape. Most attacks target people before they target systems. That’s why helping users build sustainable security habits is crucial.

The April 2023 report details a continued rise in Russian state-sponsored threat actors, the shutdown of a widely used hacker marketplace, “shadow ban” attacks against Twitter users, and the emergence of several new high and critical vulnerabilities, including a zero-day exploit against Google Chrome. It also provides updates to the metrics and information on the most impactful vulnerabilities and malware strains in the wild today and includes information on some of the top phishing sites observed over the month.

Our international survey explored the experience of ransomware attacks on organizations over the last 12 months. The findings show that almost three-quarters (73%) of respondents report being hit with at least one successful ransomware attack in 2022 — and 38% say they were hit twice or more.

This report will help you recognize the social engineering tactics and sophisticated coding used in phishing attacks, so you can prevent costly data breaches. Read on for an in-depth look at the latest phishing trends and observations the ThreatLabz team collected throughout the past year, and get best practices for safeguarding your organization against ever-evolving phishing techniques.

The global cyber threat landscape has escalated. In this, our third Global Threat Report, we find that attack frequency has reached unprecedented levels; 90% of security professionals said the volume of attacks they faced has increased. Attackers are employing a more diverse range of tactics and techniques than ever before as they bid to extort, disrupt and infiltrate organizations.

In this year’s survey, more than 80% of respondents say they are “very” or “extremely” concerned about the threat of ransomware, yet a similar number (78%) of organizations surveyed also believe they are “very” or “extremely” prepared to thwart a breach. Despite those concerns and feelings of preparedness, half of the organizations surveyed still fell victim to ransomware last year.

The report is based on threat intelligence observations from the Threat Analysis Group (TAG), Google Cloud Threat Intelligence for Chronicle, Trust and Safety, and other internal teams. It provides actionable intelligence that enables organizations to ensure their cloud environments are best protected against ever evolving threats. In this and future threat intelligence reports, Google will provide threat horizon scanning, trend tracking, and Early Warning announcements about emerging threats requiring immediate action.

The report outlines the most significant identity attacks of 2022, the weaknesses of MFA, and the IAM hygiene issues that are increasing identity attack surfaces. This report analyzed user data, login information, and information from identity providers including Okta, Azure Active Directory, Duo, and Auth0. In total, the analysis covers more than 500,000 identities from organizations with 1,000+ employees.

The findings in this 2023 cybersecurity skills gap report clearly show that organizations are fighting an uphill battle against cyberthreat— incurring more breaches, in need of skilled professionals, and continuing to struggle to fill key positions.

This report, the result of a collective effort of Black Kite Researchers, focuses on what has changed in 2022, for better or for worse, compared to 2021. It highlights some of the lessons of past years and those still being learned within the changing cyber landscape. For this study, Black Kite Research analyzed 63 individual third party incidents, which ultimately resulted in more than 298 publicly-disclosed headline breaches and data leaks during the past year. These events inevitably caused thousands of other ripple-effect breaches throughout 2022. The report finalizes the lessons learned and relevant recommendations for the future.

It’s a horror story that many organizations are familiar with - an employee clicks a link or visits a website, and chaos ensues. At best, it’s just a minor disruption. At worst, business continuity is broken, and an organization’s critical infrastructure is at risk. Regardless of the outcome, managing human risk is a major part of business today. In this report, we dive into what makes workers high risk, where those high risk users spend their time, what are their riskiest behaviors, and what that might mean for your organization’s security.

In releasing our annual M-Trends report, we aim to provide some of that same critical intelligence to the greater security community. M-Trends 2023 continues our tradition of offering details on the evolving cyber landscape, mitigation recommendations, and a wide variety of security incident-related metrics.

The Google Cloud Threat Horizons Report brings decision-makers strategic intelligence on threats to cloud enterprise users and the best original cloud-relevant research and security recommendations from throughout Google’s intelligence and security teams.

For the report, Marsh McLennan paired its extensive proprietary dataset of cyber claims with the results from Marsh Cybersecurity Self-Assessment (CSA) questionnaires, which are composed of hundreds of questions and responses from individual organizations. When combined, the two datasets allow for deep insights into which cybersecurity controls have the greatest effect on the likelihood of an organization experiencing a cyber event. Such innovative use of data and analytics can help companies identify which controls to prioritize. In turn, this can help position an insured favorably during cyber insurance underwriting.

The analysis in this report was conducted by the PwC Threat Intelligence practice, which is distributed across Australia, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. It is based on our in-house intelligence datasets on cyberattacks and targeting from a wide variety of threat actors, intelligence gleaned from PwC’s incident response engagements around the world, and our managed threat hunting services, as well as publicly available information.

Throughout 2022, the cyber threat landscape reflected real world events and geopolitical tensions, with much of the year impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Log4Shell ushered in a chaotic start to 2022 and highlighted the positive impact of industry collaboration, as well as the criticality of patching and understanding the footprint of widely used software in environments.