Kazakhstan records over 223 million cyberattacks by foreign hackers in 2023

Over 223 million attempted cyberattacks committed on Kazakhstan in 2023 are attributed to foreign hackers.

According to the technical service, cyberattacks on Kazakhstan were mainly made from Ukraine, the United States, Poland, Russia and China, Caliber.Az reports citing Kazakhstani media.

Hackers tried to find a hole in the protection of clients of the Unified Internet Access Gateway (UGAT), a hardware and software complex that protects telecommunication networks when accessing the Internet, the service said.

In addition, hackers were interested in local executive bodies (133.5 million attempted cyberattacks), then government agencies (47.7 million), quasi-government sector (27 million), telecom operators (19.9 million) and private companies (2.9 million).

The public sector was attacked the most, at 62%. Particular activity was observed in the northern regions of Kazakhstan (North Kazakhstan Oblast, Akmola Oblast, and Kostanai Oblast).

Malicious activity using Ukraine's IT infrastructure peaked in July and almost all of them (95%) were related to attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in Zyxcel hardware.