Essential Insights
- Organizations experienced an increase in weekly cyberattacks (22% YoY), with ransomware, phishing, and AI-related data exposure risks rising significantly across sectors.
- Phishing emails predominantly used malicious links (72%), with assaults targeting sectors reliant on frequent external communication, like associations and nonprofits.
- Ransomware attacks nearly doubled year-on-year, primarily targeting Business Services, with prominent groups like Qilin and Orova driving active threat campaigns.
Threats, Attack Techniques, and Targets
Check Point Research reports that organizations face an average of 2,422 cyberattacks each week. These attacks increased by 4% from the previous month and 22% from last year. Several attack types are growing stronger. Ransomware incidents are rising, and phishing attempts are becoming more frequent. Additionally, risks linked to workplace use of generative AI are widespread. Attackers target many regions and sectors, not just a few.
The education sector remains the most targeted, with each organization experiencing over 5,300 weekly attacks. Governments rank second, with more than 3,000 attacks weekly. The hospitality, travel, and recreation sector saw a 56% rise in attacks from last year. Regionally, Latin America faces the most attacks, with 3,577 per organization weekly. Europe shows the fastest growth, up 28% annually. Heavy attack volumes are common across regions, especially in industries with large user pools, frequent external interactions, and extensive data flows.
Workplace use of generative AI tools is also rising. Users generate more prompts each month, and organizations use multiple AI tools. About 1 in 43 prompts from enterprise networks expose data risk. High-risk AI prompts remain common in healthcare, software, and business services. Latin America shows the highest rate of high-risk prompts. This widespread AI use creates governance challenges for handling sensitive information and makes it difficult to track data usage and protection.
Email remains a key method for attackers. One in every 112 emails is a phishing attempt. Most phishing emails use links rather than attachments. Links appear in 72% of these emails. Phishers target sectors like associations, nonprofits, construction, and engineering, where email communication is frequent and important.
Ransomware attacks increased significantly. There were about 1,042 attacks, almost twice as many as last year and 8% more than in July. Business services face the most attacks, making up 36%, followed by manufacturing and consumer goods. Ransomware groups like Qilin, The Gentlemen, and Orova are very active, with Qilin leading in August.
Impact, Security Implications, and Guidance
The rising number of cyberattacks can cause serious harm to organizations. Ransomware can lock vital data or systems, causing operational disruption. Phishing can trick employees into sharing sensitive information, leading to data breaches. Attacks targeting AI tools can expose proprietary or regulated data. These threats impact many sectors and regions, showing that no organization is immune.
Security teams should understand that fragmented defenses are not enough. They need a comprehensive approach that offers visibility, control, and automation. Combining network, cloud, endpoint, email, and AI security measures helps prevent attacks before they cause damage.
If organizations face these threats, they should seek remediation guidance from their security vendors or relevant authorities. Always follow best practices, update security systems regularly, and train staff on cyber threats. Staying informed and prepared reduces the risk of cyber incidents and helps protect critical data and operations.
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