Nearly 1.5 Million Cyberattacks Recorded in Türkiye in 2024

WatchGuard, a global leader in integrated cybersecurity, shared critical data on cyberattacks that occurred in Turkey during 2024.

According to the WatchGuard Threat Lab report, malware attacks in 2024 declined by 99.97% compared to the previous year, falling to 235,191. Network-based attacks, however, surged by 2,340.66%, rising to 1,037,769. Despite this significant decline in malware attacks, Yusuf Evmez, Country Manager for WatchGuard Turkey and Greece, emphasized that companies and individual users should not neglect cybersecurity measures.

644 Malware Attacks Occurring Daily!

According to a report prepared from data received by the WatchGuard Threat Center from Firebox UTM devices, 644 malware attacks and 27 attacks per hour occurred daily in Turkey during 2024. Yusuf Evmez noted that many of the attacks originated from malware such as Gen:Heur.Mint.Zard.24 and Trojan.Linux.Generic.174445, and while malware attacks showed an impressive 99.97% decline compared to the previous year, remaining continuously updated against cyber threats and implementing strong defensive measures remains critically important.

Cyberattacks Hit Record Levels in March 2024

March 2024 recorded a peak of 42,669 malware attacks, with 3% of these attacks being zero-day attacks. Yusuf Evmez noted that traditional protection methods cannot provide adequate protection against such attacks, which can cause significant damage to information systems and critical data, and recommends that organizations adopt advanced security technologies.

Network Attacks Surged by 2,340.66%!

Today, many organizations move their data to networks, and cybercriminals, seizing this opportunity and seeking to obtain data, infiltrate networks and launch powerful attacks. According to a report prepared from data received by the WatchGuard Threat Center from Firebox UTM devices, Turkey experienced 2,843 network attacks daily, 118 per hour, and 2 per minute in 2024. Yusuf Evmez, highlighting that network attacks increased by 2,340.66% in 2024, reaching 1,037,769, with the vast majority of these attacks being unknown and never encountered before, and that the third most common network attack was "WEB Directory Traversal -2.u", stressed that cybercriminals exploit every vulnerability and security gap in networks to achieve their objectives.

"Attackers Target Multiple Accounts Using Password Spraying Technique"

Alper Onarangil, Senior Sales Engineer at WatchGuard Turkey and Greece, commented on the matter: "In the surge of cyberattacks observed in March 2024, we saw attackers targeting multiple accounts using the 'password spraying' technique. In this method, multiple accounts are automatically targeted with commonly used passwords. Particularly threat actors such as China-based Storm-0940 use information obtained through this technique to access sensitive data. Inadequate password policies at organizations and the lack of basic security measures such as multi-factor authentication play an important role in making these attacks successful. Thanks to automation tools developed by attackers, attacks have become faster and more effective. This demonstrates that organizations need to increase their cybersecurity investments and focus particularly on password management and authentication processes. Having security teams equipped with advanced attack detection and response (EDR) capabilities is critical to creating stronger defenses against such threats."