State-sponsored hackers had a field day in the first half of this year, committing a variety of crimes that ranged from the theft of cryptocurrencies to the hacking of major telecommunications businesses. During the first half of this troublesome year, there has been a steady increase in the number of massive cyberattacks, data breaches, digital fraud, and ransomware assaults. It doesn’t matter whether the first half of 2022 lasted a long time or a short time, or if it lasted both, this has been a challenging year.

The COVID-19 epidemic, economic instability, geopolitical unrest, and terrible violations of human rights are all happening around the world, and it has become very clear that weaknesses in cybersecurity and digital dangers are directly linked to many parts of daily life. It is of the utmost importance to implement secure systems and software such as a container registry that has the greatest possible degree of security.

Ukraine Cyberwar

For several years, Russia has been assaulting Ukraine aggressively online. These attacks have taken place over many years. These activities have resulted in blackouts, attempts to affect elections, the theft of data, and the release of malicious software that has been spreading throughout the nation as well as the rest of the globe. However, since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February, several shifts have taken place in the digital realm between the two nations.

While Ukraine is fighting back in every way it can think of, Russia is having trouble keeping up with a huge and costly physical battle. As a consequence of this, Russia has continued to launch cyberattacks on the institutions and infrastructure of Ukraine. Nevertheless, Ukraine has been hacking back in a manner that is quite efficient.

At the beginning of the war, Ukraine established a volunteer “IT Army” whose primary mission has been to conduct DDoS assaults and other sorts of disruptive hacking against Russian institutions and services in an attempt to inflict as much disruption as is humanly feasible. Hacktivists from all across the globe have joined the fight and brought their expertise as well as their digital weapons with them.

Moreover, since Ukraine has used other forms of hacking against Russia, such as assaults using proprietary malware, Russia has seen data breaches and service failures on a scale that has never been seen before.

 Lapsus$ Group

The cybercrime gang known as Lapsus$ embarked on a hacking binge of unparalleled intensity during the first couple of months of the year 2022. After making its debut in December, the organization immediately began stealing source code and other valuable information from more significant and sensitive businesses, such as Nvidia, Samsung, and Ubisoft, before publishing the information in what appears to be an attempt to extort money from those businesses.

In March, the group announced that it had breached and leaked portions of Microsoft’s Bing and Cortana source codes, as well as compromised a contractor with access to the internal systems of the widespread authentication service Okta. This marked the high point of the spree, which had been building steadily since January. The escapade had finally reached its apex at this point. Phishing was the major technique that the attackers used to get access to the computer systems that belonged to their targets.

It seems that these assailants were based in both the United Kingdom and South America at the same time. At the end of March, British police apprehended seven people who are believed to have ties to the organization. At the beginning of April, two of those people were charged with crimes related to the investigation. It appears that Lapsus continued to function for a brief amount of time after the arrests, before slipping into a state of dormancy.

Healthcare Providers

Ransomware perpetrators have long targeted hospitals and other facilities that assist patients and the general public. These individuals attempt to generate a feeling of urgency to persuade individuals to make payments so that they may regain access to their digital systems. They have been specifically targeting these industries for some time now. But there have been data breaches in the health care business throughout the year 2022, as identity thieves and other criminals continue to conduct financial crimes and steal information with the intent of selling it on the black market.

In June, Shields Health Care Group, a service provider based in Massachusetts, said that it had had a data breach that had an impact on about 2 million individuals throughout the United States for the majority of March.

Along with medical information such as diagnoses and medical record markers, some of the information that was collected included names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and billing information. Other information that was obtained included medical information such as diagnoses. The information was taken from a database that was stored online.

Patients of Baptist Health System and Resolute Health Hospital in Texas reported in June that they had experienced a data breach identical to the one described above, which exposed sensitive patient medical information as well as Social Security numbers. Patients’ statements came after the hospitals were located in Texas. During June, Yuma Regional Medical Center in Arizona and Kaiser Permanente in California both disclosed that they had suffered data breaches.