Cyberattacks of 2022 impacted businesses of all shapes and sizes, leaving companies in disrepair and still struggling to this day to rectify the issues that were caused by these hackers. Keep reading as we discover the cyberattacks that shocked the world last year.
5. Medibank
Medibank is one of Australia’s largest health insurers. The company was the victim of a ransomware attack in October, 2022. On October 13, the company noticed suspicious activity on their systems, only to realize that the whole system was compromised a few days later. The hackers tried to settle with the company, which they didn’t accept. They announced the attack about a month later, sharing that 9.7 million past, current, and potential customers had their financial and personal information leaked as a result of this attack.
The hackers released files labeled “naughty-list” and “good-list” online, sharing information on the “naughty-list” about patients with mental health conditions, drug-related treatment, and HIV positive status.
4. Lapsus$
Lapsus$ is a hacking collective that wreaked havoc in 2022 when they attacked some of the world’s largest companies. Victims of theirs included Samsung, Microsoft, and T-Mobile, as well as the Brazilian Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 vaccination records. A group of young individuals who used social engineering to gain access to the networks stole critical information from these companies. With their expertise in data exfiltration, we just have to hope they won’t cause more problems in the future for companies around the world.
3. Ronin Network
The biggest cryptocurrency theft of the year shocked the world when the Ronin Network was hacked by the North Korean group Lazarus. Ronin Network is an Axie Infinity property and was contacted on LinkedIn via a fake company. Unfortunately, employees fell for this connection, offering job interviews and offers to individuals. The official job PDF was then used to corrupt nodes, compromise computers, and validate transactions with Sky Mavis’ Ronin blockchain.
A shocking $625 million dollars of USDC and Ethereum cryptocurrency was exchanged during this time period. Sky Mavis was at the center of the coverage surrounding this attack, as the game developer uses an in-game currency called RON. The Ronin Network is still recovering from this attack and trying to rebuild their reputation.
2. Costa Rica
Pro-Russian hacking group Conti performed one of the biggest cyberattacks of 2022 against Costa Rica on May 8. This ransomware attack disrupted the government’s computing systems and stole information from the Ministry of Finance. They demanded $10 million to avoid exposing the data, which could have destroyed the lives of millions of citizens and business owners in Costa Rica. Rodrigo Chavez Robles, the new President of Costa Rica, worked with cybersecurity professionals from Spain, Israel, the United States, and Microsoft to resolve the issue, but things were only going to get worse.
A few weeks later on May 31, Hive Ransomware Group worked to take over the country’s Social Security system. They corrupted 9,000 endpoints and 800 servers, leaving the government with no choice but to take their systems offline to resolve the issue.
1. Ukraine Cyberattacks
While the four cyberattacks of 2022 we’ve shared so far shocked the world, nothing comes close to the cyberattacks performed against Ukraine. Back in January, the Russian Federation started to carry out huge cyberattacks following the military action on the country, causing even more disruption for this nation. Over the course of the year, 2,000 cyberattacks took place, all of which were aimed at Ukrainian organizations.
Over 300 of these targeted security and defense organizations, while 400 directly impacted the day-to-day life of civilians. Energy companies, commercial businesses, software development companies, and telecommunication organizations were all impacted. On top of these attacks, over 1,000 separate hacks targeted the military and government of Ukraine. The Kremlin-backed hackers caused many issues for everyone living and working in the country, and we can only hope this year will see the end of these attacks.
As a business owner, you need to protect yourself from cyberattacks. Contact our team of experts today to learn more about how we can help you to secure your business this year.
