Swiss Cyber Fraud Reports Nearly Double in H2 2023

In the second half of 2023 (H2 2023), the Swiss National Cyber Security Centre, the predecessor of the Federal Office for Cybersecurity (FOC), received 30,331 reports of cyber incidents through its official reporting form, compared to 16,951 in the same period in 2022, according to a press release issued Monday. This was largely due to false job postings and so-called calls from the police.

The types of cyber fraud reported are as follows: 

Companies mainly reported so-called CEO fraud and invoice manipulation fraud. On the other hand, ransomware attacks against companies showed a downward trend, falling from 54 to 42.

Phishing reports also doubled during the reporting period, from 2,179 to 5,536, and the FOC drew attention to so-called chain phishing, in which phishers send emails through hacked email inboxes to all stored addresses.

There have been relatively few fraud attempts using artificial intelligence (AI). Examples include sextortion attempts with AI-generated images, the faking of celebrity calls, or investment fraud in the name of celebrities. However, the FOC assumes that cybercriminals are currently exploring the fraud possibilities offered by AI to utilize them in future cyberattacks.

New cyber defense strategy

The number of reports of damage in Switzerland increases by an average of 30% per year. Last year, the Federal Office processed a total of 187,000 reports via the antiphishing.ch website, shutting down 8,223 websites in Switzerland that were used for phishing.

On average, a malware infection is reported to the FOC every 40 hours. small and medium-sized businesses in particular are increasingly being targeted by cybercriminals.

Florian Schütz, the Director of the FOC, has presented a new strategy for implementing the National Cyber Strategy (NCS). The federal office is focusing on four areas: making cyber threats understandable, providing means to prevent attacks, reducing losses, and improving the security of digital products and services.

(Source: swissinfo.ch)