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Media apps most likely to be targeted by threat actors, says study

Senior Journalist

Updated on: 20 January 2023

The media industry is the most vulnerable to cyberattacks and more than four times likely than average to have a “critical vulnerability” in apps used to carry out jobs, according to research by penetration testing company Software Secured.

Software Secured found an average of 3.75 critical vulnerabilities in apps used in the media profession, compared with just a 0.9 average across all industries. The data and analytics industry came second with 1.5 – still far short of the top score.

Critical vulnerabilities can include SQL injection, whereby a threat actor uses malicious code to manipulate a database to get access to sensitive data, remote code execution or hijacking a target device, and unauthorized access to a system.

Software Secured also discovered that the former type of attack had risen year on year by 250% in 2022, with denial of service (DoS) attacks going up by 133% over the same period.