White Paper: Zscaler ThreatLabz 2023 Enterprise IoT and OT Threat Report

The Zscaler ThreatLabz research team found several key changes that have occurred in IoT malware since 2022:

• IoT device traffic has increased by 18% since last year as more consumer and enterprise users have embraced smart office, connected, devices
• As a result of this increase in devices, IoT malware attacks grew 400% since 2022
• The manufacturing industry was the top target for IoT malware and bears the brunt of blocked IoT malware attacks - 54.5% of all attacks are on manufacturing businesses. On average, this equates to 6,000 weekly attacks across all tracked devices
• Education experienced a substantial increase in IoT malware attacks over the last 12 months, with a 961% jump in attacks
• Geographically, businesses in Mexico and the United States were the most targeted, accounting for 69.3% of IoT cyberattacks

IoT botnets continue to dominate, with the Mirai and Gafgyt malware families accounting for 66% of attacks, mainly targeting vulnerabilities that have not been patched in 3+ years.