Government Sector Suffers 236% Surge in Malware Attacks

Global threat actors have been ramping up attacks on government targets, with a triple-digit annual increase in malware-driven attempts to compromise victims in the first three months of the year, according to SonicWall.

The security vendor’s analysis is based on attacks it blocked for customers. Alongside the 236% year-on-year (YoY) increase in Q1 2024, it recorded a 27% annual increase in government attacks in the month leading up to the US election.

There are growing concerns over foreign meddling in the knife-edge presidential election designed to sow doubt about the result. SonicWall claimed that recorded DDoS attacks are on track to surpass last year’s figure by 32%.

The vendor also claimed to have blocked over 12.9 million attacks targeting IP cameras this year. IoT devices like this are commonly hijacked and linked together in botnets designed to launch DDoS and other attacks.

With less than a week to go before voters go to the poll in the US, a separate study claimed yesterday that a majority of US county websites could be spoofed to spread election disinformation and support phishing campaigns.

That’s because they were found to be registered with non-.gov domains. The same report also warned that many of the contact email addresses are not protected by anti-phishing protocol DMARC.

Read more on government threats: US, UK and India Among the Countries Most at Risk of Election Cyber Interference

“As attackers continue to attack critical government services and election-related systems, the importance of multi-layered cybersecurity measures cannot be overstated,” said SonicWall executive director of threat research, Doug McKee.

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

SonicWall also recorded a 33% increase in attacks related to the software supply chain since the start of the year.

This chimes with data from Sonatype earlier this month which revealed an increase in attacks targeting open source ecosystems. The vendor claimed to have detected a 156% YoY increase in malicious packages, with more than 704,102 now identified since 2019.