Global cyberattacks hit 50% high, as Africa emerges most targeted region

The global community recorded an alarming rate of cyberattacks in 2021, with a 50 percent increase in overall attacks on corporate networks compared to 2020, and Africa emerging as the most targeted area.

Report from Checkpoint Research in October shows a 40 percent increase in cyberattacks with one of every 61 organizations impacted by ransomware each week globally, and by Q4 of 2021, the upward global trend continued, reaching an all-time peak by December, with 925 cyberattacks reported weekly per organization.

According to the report, Africa experienced the highest volume of cyber-attacks after a survey carried out in five regions. It shows that an organization had to struggle with an average of 1582 cyber-attacks per week representing a 13 percent increase from 2020.

The Asian-Pacific (APAC) region had a follow-up, emerging as the second region of cyberattacks with an average of 1353 per organization weekly, and Latin America recording 1118 attacks per organization weekly.

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Meanwhile, Europe and North America recorded the least cybercrime with 670 and 503 attacks on organizations per week respectively.

However, education and research is the most impacted sector, experiencing a 75 percent increase in attacks compared to 2020.

The education and research sector experienced an average of 1605 attacks per organizations each, followed by the government and military.

Out of 16 sectors surveyed, the result shows that there was a 47 percent increase in targeted attacks on government and military and 51 percent in communications.

Checkpoint also provided strategies that can be applied to boost cybersecurity, which includes preventing the attacks before they happen through a security architecture that enables and facilitates a single cohesive protection infrastructure.

Other strategies explained include securing every attack surface in business, applying security patches, segmenting networks, educating employees on cybersecurity, and implementing advanced security technologies.