Google Threat Analysis Group(TAG) has announced that it has tracked down more than 40,000 state-backed cyber attacks on its account holders in 2019. The web search giant claims that the year 2018 witnessed 25% higher cases when compared to last year. Meaning the previous year witnessed a dip in the number of cyberattacks.
All these details were revealed in a report by the TAG Security Engineer Toni Gidwani who claims that the attacker’s motive seems to have slowed down last year- which is a true sign of relief.
Note 1- In between July and September, the TAG of Google is said to have issued over 12,000 warnings to its users in over 149 countries about government-backed cyber attacks. Details on which countries backed these attacks are yet to be revealed on an official note.
Technically speaking, TAG’s underlying objective is not to stop cyber attacks, but to track down those which have been launched by state-funded actors and warn their targets beforehand.
What’s interesting in this report is that those who have signed for Google’s Advanced Protection Program(APP) have never been targeted and over 20% of the user who received the warning from the 40,000 received multiple updates on this note.
Note 2- Google’s Advanced Protection Program is a service initiated by Google and dedicated to those who want their accounts safeguarded from state-funded attacks. So, journalists, politicians, business leaders and activists along with individuals can opt for this free service program.
