Since the start of the conflict, we have seen a 300% increase in cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in Europe. Of particular concern is the use of wiper malware, which we were recently able to neutralize at an energy supplier.

An alarming trend is the misuse of AI-powered language models for phishing attacks. Last month, we discovered a campaign that generated deceptively real, personalized emails in different languages. Our AI-based defense was able to successfully block these attacks.

Recently, we have seen an increase in attacks via IoT devices. In one case, an executive's smart aquarium was used as a gateway to gain access to the company network. This underlines the need to include even seemingly harmless networked devices in security concepts.

In our practice, we have seen that advanced ransomware attacks can completely encrypt a medium-sized company in less than 45 minutes. Without adequate protective measures and a robust contingency plan, this can lead to weeks of business interruption.