Microsoft: 58 percent of all global state hacks come from Russia

Between June 2020 and July 2021, 58 percent of all cyberattacks linked to governments came from Russian soil. That’s what Microsoft says. North Korea, Iran, China and South Korea round out the top five countries that have carried out the most cyber attacks.

The attacks by the Russian state actors are also becoming more successful, according to Microsoft. In 2020, the success rate was 21 percent, in 2021 it would be 32 percent. The Russian attackers mainly targeted intelligence services, ministries of home and foreign affairs and the defenses of the United States, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

Espionage is said to be the main motive for the cyber attacks, although Microsoft says Iran has quadrupled its cyber attacks against Israel in the past year because the two countries are at odds. North Korea, according to Microsoft, turned its attention to crypto companies to support its economy.

About 21 percent of the attacks were targeted at consumers, Microsoft said, and 79 percent of the attacks were against businesses, about 48 percent were government organizations and NGOs and think tanks received 31 percent of the attacks. The industries most often targeted by ‘private’ cybercriminals were retail (13 percent), the financial sector (12 percent), the industrial sector (12 percent), the public sector (11 percent) and the medical sector (9 percent). ). According to Microsoft, they are after money and less on information.

Microsoft also mentions China in its report. From there, the hacker collective Chromium attacked Indian, Malaysian, Mongolian, Pakistani and Thai entities in order to obtain social, political and economic intelligence. Another Chinese hacker collective, Nickel, is said to have targeted foreign ministries in Europe, Central and South America. In the United States, the Chinese collective Zirconium is said to have targeted high-ranking individuals closely involved in the recent US presidential election.