Cyberattackers and hacktivists are increasingly targeting the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and other nations in the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) region. The region is likely a favored target because it’s a hub for commerce and trade, full of rich economies; and because of regional nations’ stance on certain geopolitical issues.
That’s according to 18 months of Dark Web data compiled by Moscow-based threat research firm Positive Technologies. The report stated that the first half of the year, the number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the region rose 70%, compared with the same period in the previous year.
Hacktivists use forums as both a way to call like-minded hackers to action and to publish evidence of their success against specific targets, says Anastasiya Chursina, a threat analyst with Positive Technologies.
“We believe that this trend may continue and the number of attacks carried out by hacktivists will go up,” she says. “At the same…