The Majority of Cyber Attacks in 2021 Targeted Educational and Government Institutions

Cyber attacks can make it really difficult for the world to function in a sustainable enough manner, and there has been such a huge uptick in cybercrime occurrences that most organizations are struggling to figure out what if anything they can do about this. The thing is, not every sector is going to be targeted equally when it comes to these attacks. Quite on the contrary, research has shown that some sectors are considerably more vulnerable than others.

Check Point Software just released a report that looked into the incidences of cyber attacks among various industries and sectors. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the most vulnerable target for cyber criminals and the like turns out to be educational institutions such as schools and universities. Such establishments suffered over 1,600 attacks every single week which comes up to over 83,000 attacks in a single year.

These cyber attacks resulted in teachers and students having their personal information stolen, and the problem got so bad that there were multiple instances of classes having to be suspended due to the frequency of such attacks. This obviously negatively impacted the academic progress of students and a lack of security infrastructure in colleges and the like might be the culprit because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making it a lot easier for a cyber criminal to get their foot in through the door.

The second most vulnerable target was surprisingly government and military organizations. Such institutions should ideally have the highest level of security, but they also tend to be really valuable targets with all things having been considered and taken into account. That might be why government and military entities suffered 1,136 attacks per week in 2021. Communications companies and ISPs were the third and fourth most impacted respectively with 1,079 and 1,068 attacks per week each. No other sector suffered over a thousand attacks per week, so these are the industries that require the most help from a cyber security point of reference.


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