The BKA situation report for 2022 is worrying. The numbers indicate an increasing trend in a wide variety of criminal activities and offers. Companies and authorities are particularly affected.
False joy: Cybercrime crimes have increased
Although the police crime statistics (PKS) recorded a 6.5 percent decrease in cybercrime crimes, these figures reflect a false picture. The IT Finanzmagazin explains that the 137,000 registered cybercrime cases only include those where the crime scene was certain or probably in Germany. However, if one considers cases in which the crime scene was abroad or simply could not be identified, an increase of 8 percent was observed. According to Statista, cybercrime crimes caused damage of around 202.7 billion euros to the Federal Republic in 2022 alone. At 41.5 billion euros each, the two main losses are lost sales due to the loss of competitive advantages and the failure and damage to IT systems.
Bitkom President Achim Berg adds in an article published by the association on its website that cyber attacks have become the focus of business and politics at least since Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. According to the article by Bitkom eV, 39 percent of German companies experienced a sharp increase in cyberattacks in 2022, and operators of critical infrastructure even noticed an increase of 45 percent.
New trend: AI makes attack methods much easier
One of the most popular attack techniques is still phishing. The attackers send emails in which they pretend to be someone else in order to get recipients to click on links to malicious websites or download dangerous software, according to the article in IT Finanzmagazin. The financial sector is the industry most frequently affected by such phishing attacks. Banks therefore have a special responsibility to regularly share common communication channels with their customers. In this way, phishing attempts can be identified more quickly and the danger can be prevented.
With the help of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, more skillful approaches to carrying out such cyber attacks have become easier, explains Handelsblatt. The authors explain that it is now even more difficult to tell the difference between phishing emails and the originals. The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) also warns against this, especially since the effort on the part of the perpetrators can be significantly reduced through the use of AI.
Unconscious download: malware for iOS and Android
According to the article by IT Finanzmagazin, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has now also warned about malicious apps. Both Android and iOS devices are affected. Various beta versions can often be found in advance on some platforms; according to the article, these are also less strictly controlled. Malicious programs often sneak in this way.
Editorial team finanzen.net