Amid escalating geopolitical tensions, cybersecurity threats have been rising in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.  

According to a StormWall report, the region witnessed a 183% year-on-year (YoY) increase in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks during Q1 2024, highlighting the urgent need for enhanced cybersecurity measures.

The report highlighted that the surge in DDoS attacks is directly linked to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has triggered a significant rise in hacktivist activities.

Government services accounted for 34% of all incidents in the region, witnessing a dramatic 218% YoY increase. The energy sector was also a primary target, making up 18% of all attacks and showing a 206% YoY increase.

Additionally, the most targeted countries in the region during this period were shown to be the UAE at 21%, Saudi Arabia at 18%, and Iran at 14%.

Cyber attackers focused on critical infrastructure, mainly targeting supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and energy management systems (EMS.) 

The attacks were executed to disrupt operations and threaten business continuity, highlighting vulnerabilities in the region’s critical infrastructure.

The report further states that in Q1 2024, the region’s average number of botnet nodes has quadrupled from 4,000 to 16,000, enabling attackers to launch more powerful DDoS attacks.