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Logging on to Windows: Exposure to 600+ Million Cyber Attacks

By Laura Tucker
Windows Every Day Cyber Attacks Featured

When you’re logging in to your PC, you better hope that you have a good antivirus. A new report shows that you are exposed to more than 600 million cyber attacks EACH DAY that you log in to Windows. That type of thing makes you afraid to even turn on your PC, let alone use it.

Feeding the Paranoia

Reports such as these do nothing to help the paranoia that there are people who want nothing more than access to your PC to do you harm. You may quiet those fears by saying there aren’t that many nefarious actors out there pulling off that many cyber attacks.

Windows Every Day Cyber Attacks Cybercriminal
Image source: Unsplash

Then you read a report that says there are more than 600 million cyber attacks each day. That sort of thing is hard to get away from. It’s cyber attacks that could lead to panic attacks.

Microsoft says in its 2024 Digital Defense Report that the cyber threat landscape has grown more dangerous and complex in the past year. Nefarious individuals are carrying out their attacks with more resources and preparation.

With so many users of Windows OS and 50 years in the business, Microsoft feels it’s positioned well to observe the trends in cybersecurity. It also helps that they’re using 13 trillion security signals to help follow the trends.

2024 Cyber Attack Trends in 2024

Microsoft identified the common types of cyber threats, with a note on what the current trend is. The report included other insights, But where the current threats are is an obvious concern.

While IT is the most obvious target for nation-state threat actors, it’s surprising that Education and Research is a close second, with Government coming in a distant third, and Finance barely showing up with just 5%. Microsoft notes that these threat actors use the education and research sectors as a testing ground.

Microsoft saw a 2.75 times year-over-year increase in human-operated ransomware events. At least one device was targeted in each attack. Despite these numbers, the percentage of organizations that get to the encryption stage in these attacks has deceased recently.

Windows Every Day Cyber Attacks Financial Fraud
Image source: Unsplash

Financial fraud is seeing new trends. Threat actors using phishing and other malicious activities and payment fraud are rising around the world. Techscam is growing more than malware and phishing, with a 400% increase from 2021 to 2023.

Also on the rise are identity-related cyber attacks using stolen login credentials. If you are going to protect any part of your Windows PC, protect your credentials, as 99% of daily identity attacks are password-based. Microsoft is working to fight that, though, blocking 7,000 attacks per second over the past year.

And then there’s DDoS attacks. Microsoft was able to prevent 1.25 million in the second half of the year. This is an increase four times over from last year. Microsoft believes application-layer attacks are the greatest risk to businesses, such as online banking.

If you do anything after reading this, hopefully it will be making your passwords more secure, as it sounds like that’s the worst cyber attack threat to Windows’ users. Learn how to back up and transfer passwords from one PC to another.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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