Cyberattacks down 39 percent in seven months

A total of 274 cyberattacks targeted government, semi-government and private sector entities in the UAE during the first seven months of the year, 39 percent down as compared to the corresponding period in 2017, according to the Telecommunications Regulations Authority (TRA) statistics.

The decline in reported attacks is attributed to the efforts made by the Computer Emergency Readiness Team, who is in charge of foiling all cyberattacks against websites operating in the country.

According to a survey conducted by the TRA on the impact of the malignant exploits monitored from January through July,150 offensives caused medium damage, 85 were of low detriment, while 39 were critically harmful. All of these were aimed at defacing and blocking websites, in addition to other fraudulent purposes, according to the TRA statistics.

At the monthly level, 31 attacks were recorded in July against 42 on the same month last year, 12 of which were classified as having medium impact, 12 low and 7 serious.

Cyber attacks seek to deface and block government websites, including denial of service, hacking, deception, fraud, and identity and document theft.

TRA has been launching awareness campaigns, including lectures, seminars and workshops to promote cyber safety and best practices in this field, calling upon all departments to have backup data bases independent of the internet.

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