The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) fended off over 1,600 cyberattacks in only two months, a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by software security firm Veracode has revealed.
Given that many departments connected to Government will be under similar assault, the volume itself is not that surprising. More relevant is the nature of the 1,658 incidents Ofcom revealed for October and November, including 382 SQL injection attacks, 188 malware detections and 1,088 targeted phishing emails.
None of the attacks were successful, Ofcom said, but according to Veracode the figures highlight the persistence of SQL injection attacks.
"Attacks such as SQL injection, which target an organisation's web and mobile applications, have become the number one attack vector for cyber-attackers now that organisations have effectively locked down their networks and end-points with next-generation devices," said Veracode's vice president of research, Chris Eng.
"The sheer volume and variety of these attempts are a perfect illustration of just how tenacious these attackers are - and how they're constantly searching every nook and cranny of our infrastructures to breach sensitive customer data and steal our intellectual property."
The ever-presence of SQL vulnerabilities to target has been a running theme for Veracode, which still finds this issue in a lot of the code run through its cloud-based review service.
This talllies with a warning by the UK Information Commissioner (ICO) last month that SQL injection remains a major issue for too many orgnisations, including a travel firm that suffered a significant data breach as a result of this kind of flaw.