The UK was the ‘top-attacked’ country in Europe by cyberattacks in 2022, claims a new report.

According to a study from IBM, the UK accounted for 43 per cent of cyberattacks in 2022. Germany was placed second at 14 per cent, and Portugal was third at nine per cent.

The most commonly affected sector was found to be the UK’s energy industry, which accounted for 16 per cent of all attacks.

Extortion was the leading form of attack in the UK at 57 per cent – accounting for twice the global average – and was followed by data theft at 29 per cent. IBM said the extortion-based attacks were primarily achieved through ransomware or business email compromise attacks.

“Extortion is a battle-tested technique that has grown even more pervasive than ransomware,” commented Laurance Dine, global lead, IBM Security X-Force Incident Response.

He added: “It’s not only piling financial pressure on key UK sectors at a challenging time, but in many cases the burden is passed on to consumers in the form of price rises, exacerbating the cost of goods and utilities.”

The report also found that cybercriminals are “overwhelmingly” exploiting IT vulnerabilities in UK organisations to gain initial access – the research showing that 50 per cent of UK incidents — nearly twice the global average — were caused by the exploitation of vulnerabilities, highlighting the need for stronger vulnerability management programmes and a better understanding of attack surfaces and risk-based prioritisation of patches.

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