Digital Attack Record Broken

The world record for the number of successful and verified digital attacks carried out in a single day was broken on May 4^th 2003 according to mi2g with 2,576 overt attacks.

The previous single day record was achieved on January 3^rd 2003 when there were 2,395 successful and verified overt attacks worldwide recorded.

“Decision makers are looking for a monumental incident in cyber attack terms and not recognising that the sum of the parts is growing by the day and reaching epidemic proportions. In 2003, we are seeing nearly the same number of overt attacks in a single day that we used to observe in a whole month during early 2002 or for that matter in the whole of 1999,” said DK Matai, executive chairman of mi2g.

Overt attacks include the successful penetration of private, corporate and government online computers, Web site vandalism, denial of service incidents, and interference with digital broadcasts lasting long enough for verification to take place. The motivation ranges from protest through to criminal syndicate activity, surveillance, intellectual challenge as well as identity theft and financial fraud.

Matai comments, “Overt attacks are only the tip of the iceberg. Even if digital incursions are noticed by corporations and government agencies, they are rarely admitted. The number of covert attacks is estimated to be between 3 and 5 times greater. Millions of daily incidents of malware attacks from viruses and worms are not included in the overt and covert attack intelligence data.”

mi2g finds that the proliferation of broadband connectivity increasingly shifts the focus of hacker attacks from large corporations to small businesses and individuals, which are often ill-equipped to put adequate security measures in place.