Tokio Marine HCC: Top 10 cyber incidents of 2024 highlight growing risks and need for resilience

By Mia MacGregor

Jan 27 - (The Insurer) - Tokio Marine HCC has highlighted a concerning increase in supply chain attacks in a new report on the 10 largest cyber incidents of 2024, with the carrier emphasising the need for robust collaboration and proactive security measures as businesses continue to depend on shared infrastructure.

The report included notable incidents such as the CrowdStrike outage, Change Healthcare ransomware attack, and CDK Global ransomware attack.

It also referenced the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, specifically incidents on 17 and 18 September, when explosive attacks on paging and walkie-talkie devices in Lebanon – widely attributed to Israel – left over 30 dead and 3,200 injured.

Other incidents listed in the report include the RegreSSHion zero-day vulnerability that impacted over seven million OpenSSH servers, XZ Utils critical vulnerability, Ivanti VPN attacks, Salt Typhoon cyber-espionage campaign targeting US telecommunications infrastructure, Blue Yonder ransomware attack that disrupted retail and grocery supply chains in the US and UK, and Snowflake data breach.

The CrowdStrike outage, which occurred on 19 July, caused one of the largest IT disruptions in history, affecting 8.5 million devices globally and resulting in financial losses of $5.4bn.

Tokio Marine HCC noted that relying exclusively on a single endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution heightened the impact.

While the report highlighted EDR diversification as a potential mitigation strategy, it advised organisations to carefully assess their risk exposure, operational capacity, and available resources before implementing such measures.

Diversification, while beneficial for resilience, is not a one-size-fits-all solution and must align with broader business and cybersecurity goals, the report stated.

The report also underscored the systemic risks posed by the concentration of public cloud services among providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. This dependency introduces vulnerabilities where disruptions to a single provider can ripple across entire industries.

Tokio Marine HCC emphasised the need for organisations to prioritise diversification through multi-cloud strategies, hybrid infrastructure models, and EDR redundancy to build resilience against such risks.

“Ultimately, the path forward requires striking a balance between scalability, cost efficiency, and control,” the report stated.

“By tailoring strategies to their unique risk profiles and operational demands, businesses can mitigate the complexities of modern cyber security while safeguarding their critical assets and ensuring long-term stability.”