85% of cyberattacks in the US originate internally
Cyberattacks are weapons for criminals to disrupt countries’ cybersecurity and get sensitive or even secret information. As the United States is one of the most influential countries globally, it is a massive target for hackers.
According to the recent Atlas VPN findings, 85% of cyberattacks in the United States come from inside strikes. A total of 204,410,383 attacks were recorded in a single day on May 9th. Out of them — 174,528,081 originated internally.
The second most cyberattacks came from Russia with a total of 10,579,930 threats. The third position belongs to the United Kingdom, from where 3,677,361 cyberattacks came. Germany ranks fourth with a total of 2,561,688 cyberattacks on the US. In the fifth spot comes South Korea with 2,532,161 cyberattacks.
The data is based on Imperva statistics which provide daily updates on total cyberattacks in each country and shows which industries were attacked the most. The purpose of this report is to show the scale cyberattacks are performed daily.
Most attacked industries
A data breach can become an organization’s worst nightmare. Hackers can impact many different industries. However, they choose the ones that can bring them the most value, whether it would be sensitive information or monetary rewards.
The most attacked industry in the US on May 9th based on the same data provider is the financial services sector. The sector faced a total of 59,648,818 cyberattacks. Criminals choose to strike financial services the most as they can get the largest amount of money out of it.
Businesses experienced 45,896,830 cyberattacks which put them in second place. Such incidents cause firms to lose money through lost sales, stolen cash, and paying experts to fix problems. In addition, companies could lose their customers’ trust due to security concerns.
Next up, the healthcare industry faced 27,127,810 cyberattacks. Cybersecurity-related issues in the healthcare sector compromise the integrity of systems, patients’ privacy and disrupt facilities’ ability to provide patient care.
The computing & IT industry suffered the fourth most threats with a total of 16,832,530 cyberattacks. Hackers find the Computing & IT sector a target because IT companies may store large amounts of sensitive customer data, while cloud storage and computing service providers are often the targets of supply chain compromise attempts.
Lastly, we have the education industry with 13,424,778 cyberattacks. Hackers find the education sector a target because there are lots of valuable data and users. In addition, many Higher Education institutions have research programs that contain valuable data and intellectual property that could be of use to the proper competitor.
To sum up, the United States has mostly suffered from inside attacks which exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in such industries as financial services, businesses, and more. If companies and government take no actions to reduce cyber risks, hackers will continue to expose sensitive data and disrupt organizations’ work. During travel seasons, foreigners should also consider how safe US states are.
As data shows the scale of cyberattacks is enormous and will only grow in the future, hence the right measures to curb arising cyber threats are vital.
