India Suffers 1.6 Bn Cyberattacks in Q2; Healthcare Worst Hit: Report

Reportedly, the top victims of DDoS attacks were India (135 million attacks), the United States (111 million), Germany (1 million) and the UK (1.5 million). India, the US, the UK, Russia and Singapore emerged as top victims of bot attacks.

Indusface, an app security solutions firm, has found over 1.6 billion cyberattacks in India in the second quarter ended September 30, 2023, showing an increase of 70% over the previous quarter.

The study “State of Application Security Report” revealed that all of the healthcare sites and over 90% of banking and insurance sites witnessed a bot attack during the quarter

Further, the report showed a huge surge in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks which were carried out from eight million unique IPs for 14 days. The DDoS attack traffic ranged from 3,000-14,000 times more than the usual daily traffic on the target sites

Reportedly, the top victims of DDoS attacks were India (135 million attacks), the United States (111 million), Germany (1 million) and the UK (1.5 million). India, the US, the UK, Russia and Singapore emerged as top victims of bot attacks.

The State of Application Security Q3, 2023 report is based on a sample size of over 1,400 applications. It found that over two billion attacks were blocked during the quarter with 70% of which (over 1.6 billion) originating from India.

Speaking about this, Ashish Tandon, founder and CEO of Indusface, said, "Bot attacks continue to be a significant threat for BFSI and healthcare industries signifying the importance of data that they house. 90%+ websites in these sectors are facing a variety of bot attacks. In light of the Digital Data Protection Bill, it is, therefore, critical for security and infra teams of these sectors to stay more vigilant than ever and safeguard their customer data."

Indusface, funded by Tata Capital Growth Fund II, has been actively involved in studying and reporting on cybersecurity trends. In the Q1 2023 report, it noted a sharp increase in the number of cyberattacks in India over the first three months of 2023. Revealed over 500 million cyberattacks were blocked in India out of a billion attacks globally.

Q2 recorded 947 million attacks while the Q3 2023 report observed that over 1.6 billion cyber attacks were blocked from India, reflecting a sharp escalation of 70% in the frequency of cyberattacks on Indian websites during Q3, 2023, as compared to Q2, 2023.

Indusface was founded by Ashish Tandon, the Gujarat-based startup that provides security applications for web and mobile platforms. It offers a fully managed platform that integrates a web application scanner, web application firewall, DDoS & BOT Mitigation, CDN, and a threat intelligence engine.

Cyber threats have become a global concern leading governments all across the globe to enhance their security measures. One such instance is of the American Government which recently released an updated cyber toolkit aimed at aiding the healthcare sector to effectively defend against cyberattacks. The newly designed toolkit includes strategies for the health sector to mitigate risk, such as vulnerability scanning, best practices, and a framework for accessing and improving cyber resilience.

Further, the Indian government has also initiated cybersecurity measures. Owing to this the Union Health Ministry collaborated with CERT-IN to safeguard patient data from cyber threats. CERT-In issued several advisories to authorised medical care entities and service providers nationwide. These advisories cover various areas, including the latest cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures.