According to security vendor Akamai, there was roughly 193 billion credential stuffing attempts during 2020 due to surging numbers of online users. Akamai detailed its findings in its latest report, the 2021 State of the Internet / Security publication, looking to reveal the scale of attempts to hack users’ accounts through previously breached credentials. The scale of the attacks also shines a light on the importance of refraining from re-using passwords for multiple accounts, as the risk of a breach becomes higher if attackers were to gain access to one set of credentials.
For its 2021 report, Akamai focused mainly on the financial sector, detecting 3.4 billion credential stuffing attempts targeting the vertical, marking a 45% increase on the previous year. Akamai also found that there were roughly 6.3 billion web application attacks in 2020, 736 million of which targeted financial services organizations. This figure represents a 62% increase from 2019. Across all of the sectors, SQLi took the top slot, accounting for 68% of web application attacks in 2020.
Read More: Global Credential Stuffing Attempts Hit 193 Billion in 2020
