February 2023

The latest issue of ESET Threat Report T3 2022 highlights the impact of the ongoing war on Ukraine and its effects on the world, including cyberspace. The invasion continues to have a major impact on everything from energy prices and inflation to cyber threats, with the ransomware scene experiencing some of the biggest shifts.

The unjust and barbaric Russian aggression in Ukraine has created a divide among ransomware operators, with some supporting and others opposing the war. Attackers have also been using increasingly destructive tactics, such as deploying wipers that mimic ransomware and encrypt the victim’s data with no intention of providing a decryption key. The war also affected brute-force attacks against exposed RDP services, with these attacks nose-diving in 2022.

This issue also explores the impact of cryptocurrency exchange rates and soaring energy prices on various crypto-threats with cryptocurrency-related scams experiencing a renaissance. There is much more in the report – news about phishing, Android threats, exploits, and vulnerabilities, and as usual: a review of the most important findings and achievements by ESET researchers.