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 The Asia-Pacific region retained the top spot as the "most attacked" region in 2022 for the second consecutive year, accounting for 31 per cent of all cyber security incidents remediated worldwide, a new report said on Wednesday.

According to the annual X-Force Threat Intelligence Index by IBM Security, last year, the deployment of backdoors, which allow remote access to systems, emerged as the top action by attackers with 31 per cent of cases, followed by Ransomware with 13 per cent of cases.

"Businesses in Asia-Pacific, including India will continue to face a growing number and sophistication of cyber threats as bad actors take advantage of economic and geopolitical disruptions. Hence, it is imperative that business leaders take immediate action to prepare and secure against these malicious threats," said Viswanath Ramaswamy, Vice President, Technology, IBM India & South Asia.

"This includes a holistic approach of understanding and reducing their attack surfaces, preparing for the specific threat actors and techniques that target their industry or geography, and performing regular offensive testing to detect attack paths into their environments," he added.

Moreover, the report stated that the majority of the backdoor attempts observed globally were failed ransomware attempts, where defenders were able to detect the backdoor before the ransomware was deployed.

The report also observed that threat actors selling existing backdoor access for as much as $10,000, compared to stolen credit card data, which can sell for less than $10 today.

Further, the most common impact from cyberattacks in 2022 was extortion, which was primarily achieved through ransomware or business email compromise attacks, the findings revealed.

Thread hijacking increased significantly in 2022, with attackers using compromised email accounts to reply within ongoing conversations while posing as the original participant.