Report: Finance and technology sectors account for 70% of all cyber-attack targets in the Americas

Omaha, NE (April 26, 2018) – NTT Security has released its 2018 Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR), which reveals attacks on the finance sector have increased 43% in 2017 up from 15% in 2016 in the U.S., while ransomware detection increased globally by a staggering 350% in 2017.

The 2018 NTT Security GTIR summarizes data from over 6.1 trillion logs and 150 million attacks, and analyzes global threat trends based on data from NTT Group operating companies: NTT Security, NTT Communications, NTT DATA and Dimension Data. This report analyzes attacks against 18 industry sectors and shares observations on some of the more highly targeted sectors globally and in each of four regions. See each region’s highlights with an exploration into an industry sector which was highly targeted within the region. Then find the biggest regional impact predictions for 2018 with security recommendations based on the trends.

Summary of key findings in the Americas:

• Finance sector attacks increased to 43% of attacks in the Americas, up from 15% in 2016.
• The finance and technology sectors together accounted for 70% of all attacks.
• Activity from the United States and China accounted for 62% of attacks. In the finance sector, 70% of attacks came from the United States.
• The finance industry was the target of 59% of all phishing attacks.
• For the retail sector, 71% of incident response engagements resulted from malware.

Summary of key findings globally:

• Ransomware increased from being 1% of global malware in the 2017 GTIR to nearly 7%.
• Ransomware incident response engagement fell from over 22% of incidents in 2016 to just over 5% in 2017.
• Business and professional services joined the list of the top five globally attacked industry sectors in third position at 10%.
• The gaming sector was the most targeted by ransomware in 2017 at 20%, followed by business and professional services at 17%, healthcare and manufacturing both at 12% and technology at 11%.
• Financial services (18%) and health care (15%) were the two most common sectors to seek incident response services.

Jon Heimerl, Senior Manager of the Threat Intelligence Communication Team, Global Threat Intelligence Center at NTT Security, says: “The GTIR clearly demonstrates the uphill battle organizations face in achieving an optimal balance between operational security and compliance initiatives. In order to be successful they cannot afford to be complacent and must recognize that having a firm grasp on what it takes to remain secure is a fundamental part of everyday business operations.” 

“In an ever-evolving threat landscape, defending your organization is no small task, but focusing on key areas outlined in our report, such as incident response plans, multi-factor and strong authentication, comprehensive and reliable patching and usable but effective security measures, can help to build the security posture of an organization.”

To learn more about the most important global threats and the actions management, technical staff and users can take to improve their security posture, follow the link to download the NTT Security 2018 GTIR: https://www.nttsecurity.com/gtir-us.