The CyberThreat Report

Interpreting the data in this report requires understanding “the bigger picture” on a global scale. That’s because cyberthreats to organizations worldwide don’t occur in a technical vacuum. Among the major drivers of cyber risk are wars and other forces majeures, large-scale shifts in economic cycles, and new vulnerabilities that can emerge any time a team introduces changes to factors such as business models, key partners, core processes, technology adoption, and regulatory compliance. A sampling of factors influencing our Q1 2023 threat data include:

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Asymmetric Warfare Against the West: Cyberactivity for the purposes of espionage, warfare, and disinformation in service of political, economic, and territorial ambitions from major nation-states continues to escalate. Hackers are levying increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks against Western businesses, governments, and infrastructure.

Xi Jinping’s Consolidated Control over China and Its Geopolitical Aspirations: China’s nationalist goals, assertive foreign policy, and corporate espionage practices continue to drive cyber risks as China-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) groups dominate the global landscape.

Developing Economies and Rapid Infrastructure Expansion: As many developing regions scale up infrastructure and technology as their economies grow, cybersecurity is often not top-of-mind – leading to many cyber-related vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.

Global Inflation and its Economic and Political Impacts: This quarter included market volatility, financial and political crises, and pressures on spending priorities and cybersecurity budgets.

Continued Post-COVID Supply Chain Disruptions: New paths to market across regions required shifts in partners, transportation networks, information sharing, and – by extension – cyber risk. Because cyberthreats are impacting the supply chain daily, the need for zero-trust capabilities remains strong across industries.

The Myth of Apple’s Superior Security Environment: This persists despite the fact MacOS environments can no longer be considered safe as threat actors start to leverage Golang-based malware at scale and broaden attack vectors to cover numerous operating systems.