The volume of internet-borne cyber attacks experienced by UK businesses increased by ten per cent in the final quarter of last year, helping to make 2023 the worst year ever for attempted cyber attacks.

Beaming has analysed cyberattacks targeting thousands of UK-based businesses since the beginning of 2016 to understand their nature and origin better. Beaming’s latest analysis, published today, reveals that:

• UK businesses experienced 720,252 malicious attempts each, on average, to breach their firewalls in 2023, the equivalent of a new cyber attack every 44 seconds. This was eight per cent more than in 2022 when businesses encountered 687,489 internet-borne cyber attacks each.
• October to December 2023, when UK businesses encountered 194,453 online attacks each, on average, was the worst quarter ever for attacks on UK businesses. Online attacks peaked at 67,518 (2,178 per day) in October, which was the worst month ever for online cyber attack activity, surpassing the previous record of 63,007 (2,032 per day) recorded in March 2021.
• Beaming identified more than 1.1 million IP addresses used to launch online attacks in 2023 and traced a quarter (24 per cent) to locations in China. Beaming also identified significant cyber attack activity that appeared to originate in India, USA, Brazil and Russia. The volume of attacks traced to locations in India increased by two-thirds (66 per cent) in 2023.
• Remotely controlled devices connected to the Internet of Things continued to attract the highest volume of targeted attacks in 2023. Eleven per cent of malicious web activity spotted by Beaming in 2023 appeared to target these devices, which include network device administration tools that are often unsecured by default. Businesses’ web applications, databases and filesharing services also attracted more than 20 daily attacks in 2023.