According to the federal government, the number of hacker attacks in Switzerland has increased dramatically

Swiss internet users and companies remain in the crosshairs of cybercriminals. The number of reported hacker attacks has almost doubled in the second half of 2022 compared to the first six months. This is from the semi-annual report National Center for Cybersecurity (NCSC) out.

Social media accounts in particular are a popular target for hackers, for example to extort users or use the hacked profiles to sell investment fraud advertisements, the NCSC writes in a statement on Thursday.

Warning for SMEs

The Center for Cybersecurity received a total of 34,527 reports last year. Of this, 85 percent comes from the general public and the remaining 15 percent from companies, associations and governments.

The reports relate to various forms of fraud. Fake threat emails in the name of law enforcement agencies, so-called fake extortion emails, make up nearly a third of reports. Other common types of fraud are so-called CEO fraud and invoice manipulation fraud.

Ransomware reports have remained constant, accounting for nearly half of all reports in the malware category. About one-third are private individuals, two-thirds companies.

The NCSC warns that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular still do not take cybersecurity seriously enough, while digitization continues.

Numerous computers are connected to each other via network interfaces. Processes such as order processing, planning, production and logistics are increasingly intertwined and controlled digitally. This increases the number of systems that are accessible via the internet and therefore need to be secured as well as possible.

Sources

(dsc/sda)