Türkiye among world's top cybercrime targets in 2023

By Tuba Ongun

ANKARA (AA) — Türkiye remains among the regions most targeted in the world by cybercrime this year as companies, government agencies, and organizations become more digitalized, Kaspersky announced Thursday.

The number of phishing attacks detected in the country, which are instances of internet fraud seeking to deceive a user to acquire their credentials, grew by 43% year-on-year in July-September and 20% compared to the previous three months, according to a report by the cybersecurity firm.

Türkiye was also among the top regions targeted in detected attacks on industrial control systems (ICS) computers.

Malware of all types were detected and blocked on 45% of ICS computers in Türkiye since the beginning of the year, 38% above the global average, said the report.

Kaspersky detected over 27 million attacks on Internet of Things (IoT) devices in Türkiye in 2022, especially in particular smart city infrastructure components like electricity and water systems.

"In forecasting the development of the cyberthreat landscape for 2024, we anticipate a dynamic evolution of cyberthreats marked by an upsurge in state-sponsored cyber-attacks, and 'hacktivism' will become one of the norms of cyber-warfare," said Mert Degirmenci, cybersecurity researcher at the Kaspersky Global Research & Analysis Team in Türkiye.

Degirmenci called businesses to take proactive measures and counter these cyberthreats with advanced technologies such as threat feeds, security information and event management systems, endpoint detection and response solutions, and tools with digital forensics and incident response features.