Digital Defense Report

Microsoft: Number of cyber attacks increasing rapidly

Microsoft warns of a worrying increase in cyber attacks, both by criminal hackers and by state actors. The latter are increasingly trying to influence geopolitical conflicts by conducting espionage, deleting data, disrupting infrastructure and exerting illegal influence on democratic processes.

For its latest Digital Defense Report 2024, Microsoft analyzed over 78 trillion technical processes every day. It was found that Microsoft customers alone are attacked over 600 million times a day by the company's own cloud solutions. The number of attacks with blackmail software ("ransomware") has almost tripled compared to the previous year.

According to the report, the greatest danger in cyberspace comes from hackers from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Russia uses hacker groups primarily to attack Ukraine and NATO member states. North Korea and Iran are mainly concerned with using ransomware attacks to extort money for state purposes.

Russia, Iran and China are also trying to influence elections in the USA by sowing discord and undermining trust in democratic processes. Microsoft expects these activities to increase in the weeks leading up to the elections.

Lack of preparedness
Attacks against Germany are often carried out by criminal hackers because they see the German economy as a financially strong victim. However, the attacks are also often carried out in the context of the Ukraine conflict. In addition to Ukraine itself, the UK and Poland are also exposed to many Ukraine-related attacks.

Microsoft explained that, despite the threat, Germany is only partially prepared to defend itself digitally and referred to the results of an opinion poll: according to the survey, 79% of decision-makers in politics and administration say they are only slightly prepared to defend themselves against cyber attacks. One in four respondents said that their organization had "no" preparedness at all.