Australia is 8th top target for credential attacks

Australia is the eighth most targeted country globally for credential stuffing attacks, according to research from Akamai.

The content delivery network and cloud service provider’s latest State of the Internet/Security Web Attacks and Gaming Abuse report found that Australia faced over 54.2 million credential stuffing attacks from November 2017 to March 2019.

The report notes that Australia has not consistently been in the top 10 spots during past reports.

In addition, Australia ranks only 25th globally in terms of source countries for credential attacks, with 21.6 million attacks traced to the country over the same period.

The report also found that the gaming industry has emerged as one of the fastest rising targets for credential attacks, with hackers carrying out 12 billion attacks on gaming websites during the 17-month period, a significant portion of the 55 billion attacks across all industries.

“One reason that we believe the gaming industry is an attractive target for hackers is because criminals can easily exchange in-game items for profit,” commented Martin McKeay, Security Researcher at Akamai and Editorial Director of the report.

“Furthermore, gamers are a niche demographic known for spending money, so their financial status is also a tempting target.”

Attackers have likewise shown a preference for targeting accounts that are connected to a valid credit card and can be used to purchase items such as in-game currencies to make hijacked accounts more attractive on the secondary market.

Finally, the report shows that SQL injection attacks now represent 65.1% of all web application attacks — up from 44% in the first quarter of 2017, with local file inclusion attacks accounting for 24.7%.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/monsitj

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