24-hour view of cyberattacks in Florida

Bou-Harb and his team recently scrutinized more than 5 terabytes of Internet-scale data to provide a unique 24-hour glimpse of cyberattacks and threats in Florida and the U.S. Results from this new report show that within a 24-hour timeframe:

· There were 250,779 malicious activities in the U.S.

· The top 10 infected states were California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Virginia, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio and Michigan.

· California had 51,208 attacks; New York had 23,739 attacks; Texas had 18,342 attacks; and Florida had 15,694 attacks.

· Targets hit the hardest were power utilities, water facilities and manufacturing, with Georgia, California, Oregon, New York and Texas at the top of the list.  

· In Florida, counties with the highest infection rates were Miami-Dade (4,074), Orange (1,667), Broward (1,663), Hillsboro (1,281), and Palm Beach County (903).

· Florida cities with the highest infection rates for all hosts were Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Hialeah, Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale with Boca Raton ranking in the No. 10 spot.

· Florida cities with the highest IoT infection rates were Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton.

· In Florida, IoTs most affected by malicious activities were webcams, routers, firewalls, voice over IP and storage devices. 

· In Florida, for denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks (perpetrators target a machine or network to make it unavailable to its intended users), the top targeted industries were Internet service providers, data services and telecommunications.

· Florida counties with the most DDoS victims for all hosts were Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Orange and Broward; for IoT victims it was Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach and Broward.

· Florida cities with the most DDoS victims for all hosts were Miami, Orlando, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach; for IoT victims it was Miami, Orlando, Boca Raton and Hollywood. 

FAU says that Bou-Harb’s NSF-funded project is three-fold: to detect compromises in consumer sectors to remediate privacy issues and provide resiliency to critical infrastructure; to understand how these attacks are coordinated and launched; and to place the information generated in an accessible database that other IoT operators can use for remediation. To that end, the research team is building the techniques, algorithms and methods needed to detect coordination patterns and strategies used by cyber attackers.

“Professor Bou-Harb’s work in the Cyber Threat Intelligence Laboratory and through FloridaSOAR will have a tremendous impact on addressing a rampant issue that affects millions,” said Nurgun Erdol, chair of FAU’s Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “Moreover, this program will help to train diverse and highly qualified professionals in the cybersecurity field who are in great demand in the industrial world.”

It is estimated that there will be about 6 billion Internet users worldwide by 2022 or 75 percent of the projected world population of 8 billion.