Reports Of Swiss Cyber Fraud Almost Doubled In Six Months

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Reports of cyber fraud almost doubled in the second half of 2023. In light of these figures, the head of the new Federal Office for Cybersecurity (FOC), Florian Schütz, has presented a new strategy after just over four months in office.

According to a press release issued on Monday, 30,331 reports of cyber incidents were received by the National Cyber Security Centre (the predecessor to the FOC) via the official reporting form in the second half of last year, compared to 16,951 in the same period in 2022. This was mainly due to fraudulent job offers and alleged calls from the police.

+ Read about the risks of cyberattack on aid agencies

Companies mainly reported so-called CEO fraud and invoice manipulation fraud. Ransomware attacks on companies, on the other hand, were on the decline. These fell from 54 to 42.

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

Fraud attempts using artificial intelligence (AI) are still relatively low. These include, for example, sextortion attempts with AI-generated images or the faking of celebrity calls or investment fraud in the name of celebrities. However, the FOC assumes that cyber criminals are currently exploring the fraud possibilities offered by AI in order to use them for cyber attacks in the future.

Cyber security coordination was transferred from the finance ministry to the defence ministry on January 1, 2024. However, the aim of the new federal office continues to be strengthening cyber security for critical infrastructure, the economy, education, the general public, and public authorities. One of the current challenges is the high vulnerability of IT systems for finance, public authorities, educational institutions, and the general public in cyberspace, wrote the FOC.

The inadequate ability to react to system-relevant cyber incidents and the frequent lack of transparency are also a problem. In addition, there is“only a partially mature understanding of cyber security in business, society and politics”.

These risk factors mean that“cyber attacks are too often successful”, wrote FOC Director Schütz in the editorial to the semi-annual report. And this, in turn, is reflected in high economic losses and a high risk of critical infrastructure failures.

The number of reports of damage is increasing by an average of 30% per year. Last year, the federal office processed a total of 187,000 reports via the antiphishing website and shut down 8,223 websites in Switzerland that were used for phishing.

On average, a malware infection is reported to FOC every 40 hours. Small and medium enterprises in particular are increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals. In the context of an ever-increasing use of the digital space, these figures are easy to understand, and Switzerland's figures are mid-range compared to other countries.

However, the situation must be taken seriously and improved. For this reason, the Director of the FOC presented the 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.

Adapted from German by DeepL/dkk/mga

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here , and if you have feedback on this news story please write to ... .

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

I consent to the use of my data for the SWI swissinfo newsletter.

This content was published on May 6, 2024 The Group for a Switzerland without an Army (GSOA) support abolishing nuclear weapons and an end violence.

This content was published on May 6, 2024 A majority of Swiss citizens have open attitudes towards various infertility treatments, including even egg donation, which is currently prohibited.

This content was published on May 6, 2024 Pesticide use and obstructions of waterways have a particularly negative impact on sensitive organisms, completely absent in 70% of streams analysed.

This content was published on May 6, 2024 One day after a derailment approximately 15 kilometres from the Swiss border, BLS is running buses for passengers between Preglia and Domodossola, in Italy.

This content was published on May 6, 2024 "Every stone that comes flying comes with an extremely high risk of injury," complains Bern police chief.

This content was published on May 6, 2024 Northern lights were spotted from Säntis, a mountain peak in northeastern Switzerland.

This content was published on May 6, 2024 Victorinox is working on a pocketknife without blades as global knife laws force an innovative response.

This content was published on May 5, 2024 The head of the Swiss Football League says he prefers a harsher approach to individual hooligans rather than collective punishment measures affecting all fans.

This content was published on May 5, 2024 The Swiss government emphasised on Sunday the vital role of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, 75 years after it was founded.

This content was published on May 5, 2024 Bern can count on the backing of Italy as it re-enters talks with the European Union on future relations, Viola Amherd says.

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at ... .

MENAFN06052024000210011054ID1108179161

Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.