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White paper: Top five cyber attack categories targeting the government sector

Cyber threats targeting the government sector have become a growing concern, according to IBM X-Force Security Incident Data.

Issued by IBM South Africa
Johannesburg, 16 Apr 2018
Top five cyber attack categories targeting the government sector.
Top five cyber attack categories targeting the government sector.

The IBM X-Force Security Incident Data report cited that more than 200 million government records were compromised worldwide between 1 January and 31 October 2016. That is 60 million more than in the whole 2013, 2014 and 2015 combined.

The issue of government breaches is a global problem, with close to 100 incidents reported, spanning 29 countries and six continents, the report says.

Government data breaches often involve compromising personally identifiable data, including national ID numbers, fingerprints, confidential documents and card numbers.

According to IBM's 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index, the majority of attacks against government IT networks - 71% - came from outsiders, not insiders.

IBM's Managed Security Services, which monitors billions of security events, identified five top attack categories targeting the government sector. These account for close to 64% of total attack activities.

While the government's road to cyber resilience is fraught with challenges, the goal of achieving better cyber hygiene is achievable, the report concludes.

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