Cyber fraud reports have almost doubled
Published: Monday, May 6th 2024, 13:02
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Reports of cyber fraud almost doubled in the second half of 2023. In light of these figures, the head of the new Federal Office for Cybersecurity (Bacs), Florian Schütz, presented a new strategy after just over four months in office.
30,331 reports of cyber incidents were received by the then National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) via the official reporting form in the second half of the year, compared to 16,951 in the same period last year, according to a press release on Monday. This was mainly due to fraudulent job offers and alleged calls from the police.
Companies mainly reported so-called CEO fraud and invoice manipulation fraud. Ransomware attacks on companies, on the other hand, had declined. These fell from 54 to 42.
Phishing reports also doubled in the reporting period, from 2179 to 5536. The Bacs drew attention to so-called chain phishing, in which phishers send emails to all stored addresses via hacked email inboxes.
Fraud attempts using artificial intelligence (AI) are still relatively low. These include, for example, sextortion attempts with AI-generated images or the faking of celebrity calls or investment fraud in the name of celebrities. However, the NCSC assumes that cyber criminals are currently exploring the fraud possibilities offered by AI in order to use them later for cyber attacks.
Cyber attacks too often successful
The NCSC was transferred to the Bacs on 1 January 2024 and thus from the Department of Finance to the Department of Defense. However, the aim of the new federal office is still to strengthen the cyber security of critical infrastructures, the economy, education, the population and authorities. One of the current challenges is the high vulnerability of IT systems of the economy, authorities, educational institutions and the population in cyberspace, the Bacs wrote.
The inadequate ability to react to system-relevant cyber incidents and the frequent lack of transparency are also a problem. In addition, there is "only a partially mature understanding of cyber security in business, society and politics".
"A lot of incidents are far too simple," said Bacs Director Schütz on the SRF radio program "Info 3". For example, systems are not updated in the event of security gaps.
A case like the one involving the IT company Xplain, in which sensitive data fell into the hands of hackers, will happen again, Schütz said in the interview. However, it is impossible to predict when this will happen.
The focus of his federal office is clearly on prevention, said the Bacs Director. On Monday, he also presented the new strategy for implementing the National Cyber Strategy (NCS). The Federal Office is focusing on four areas: Making cyber threats understandable, providing means to prevent attacks, reducing damage and improving the security of digital products and services.
Steady increase
The number of reports with damage increases by an average of 30 percent per year. Last year, the Federal Office processed a total of 187,000 reports via the antiphishing.ch website and shut down 8,223 websites in Switzerland that were used for phishing.
On average, a malware infection is reported to Bacs every 40 hours. SMEs in particular are increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals. In view of the ever-increasing use of the digital space, these figures are understandable and place Switzerland in the middle of the international field.
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