Secure cloud hosting company, FireHost, has recently announced its Q4 2012 web application attack statistics, detailing the type and number of cyberattacks blocked by its servers in the US and Europe between October and December 2012. Throughout 2012, FireHost has blocked over 64 million malicious cyberattacks of all types, with Cross-Site Scripting being the most prolific Superfecta attack type overall.
Each quarter, FireHost reports on the Superfecta – a group of four cyberattacks that are the most dangerous – and warns that both Cross-Site Scripting and SQL Injection attacks have become even more prevalent since the third quarter of 2012. The four attack types which make up the Superfecta, and which pose the most serious threat to the private information hosted in your database are Cross-site Scripting (XSS), Directory Traversal, SQL Injection, and Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF).
Three out of the four Superfecta attack types rose in total count between Q3 and Q4 2012 – only Cross-site Request Forgery attacks saw a drop in volume. However, the large increase in Cross-Site Scripting attacks, which rose from just over one million in Q3 2012 to 2.6 million in Q4 – an increase of more than 160 percent, seemingly dwarfs the other three attack types with 57% of the Superfecta. Cross-site scripting involves the insertion of malicious code into webpages in order to manipulate website visitors. It is used by attackers for a range of reasons, from simply interfering with websites to launching phishing attacks against web users.
To read the full report head on over to the Firehost Newsroom.