Governments are facing a huge increase in cyber attacks

This year is a pivotal one for global politics and democracy, with more than half the world’s population participating in leadership elections, particularly Russia, the EU and the US. This has predictably translated into a serious increase in the number of cyber attacks targeting government organizations around the world.

SonicWall released its short threat focusing on government organizations and found a shocking 236% year-over-year increase in malware-related attacks in Q1. The trend is particularly worrying when looking at the month leading up to the US election, which saw a 27% increase in attacks.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks this year are on track to exceed last year’s by 32%, and SonicWall alone boasts a total of 12.9 million prevented IP camera attacks, which are often part of the DDoS process.

Undermining public trust

Governments, like everyone else, are increasingly dependent on digital services and online systems, which naturally creates vulnerabilities that threat actors will seek to exploit.

“As attackers continue to attack critical government services and election-related systems, the importance of multi-layered cybersecurity measures cannot be overstated,” said Threat Research CEO Doug McKee.

“In a rapidly evolving threat landscape, the stakes have never been higher. We must embrace cross-industry collaboration and threat intelligence sharing to ensure the integrity of our election processes and protect our vital infrastructure from those who seek to exploit these systems,” he said. he continued.

The US election in particular was a popular target for foreign interferencewith disinformation campaigns by Iranian, Russian and Chinese actors seeking to cause chaos among an already deeply divided public.

At the beginning of this year, Iranian hackers have targeted high-ranking members of the Trump campaign with a cyberattack that compromised some of its communications, demonstrating just how urgent the need for robust cybersecurity really is.