Cybersecurity Frontline ~Latest Trends in 2024 and NTT DATA's Advanced Initiatives~

Cyberattack Trends in 2024

Looking back at the cybersecurity landscape in 2024, ransomware remained a critical and persistent threat. According to police statistics, the number of reported victims exceeded 100 for the first time in the first half of fiscal 2022 and reached 114 in the first half of 2024. Major incidents also drew significant public attention, including an attack on a large domestic publishing company in June 2024 and another on a major manufacturing company in October.
As these incidents continue to rise, two key trends should be highlighted.

1. Cyberattacks now affect organizations of all sizes.

Companies and institutions-regardless of scale-are experiencing damage. This indicates that cybercrime groups continue to launch indiscriminate attacks using ransomware and other malware. If a company or organization has even a small vulnerability in its systems, attackers can infiltrate it with relative ease.

2. The emergence and rise of "No ware ransomware."

Traditionally, ransomware attacks involve encrypting data and demanding payment for decryption. Some groups also use "double extortion" techniques, demanding additional ransom to prevent the release of stolen data.
No ware ransomware represents a new evolution of this threat. Instead of encrypting data, attackers steal confidential information-such as personal data or internal corporate documents-and threaten to publicly expose it unless payment is made. Because no encryption is required, these attacks are faster and more difficult to detect, making the resulting damage less likely to be immediately visible.

Cybercriminal Activities Leveraging Large Scale Events in 2024

Another major topic in 2024 was the rise in cybercriminal activities exploiting large-scale global events.
During the Paris Olympics, numerous fake video streaming websites appeared, claiming to offer free broadcasts of the opening ceremony and competitions. Users who attempted to access these sites were deceived into entering personal and credit card information under the guise of "registration," leading to phishing scams.
Additionally, a fraudulent ICO (Initial Coin Offering) site emerged, promoting investment in a fake cryptocurrency called the "Olympic Games Token."
These incidents highlight a growing trend: cybercriminals repeatedly take advantage of high-profile global events. Such methods are expected to continue in the future. It is especially important to recognize that threat actors often manipulate SNS trending features to drive users toward malicious or fraudulent sites.

The Evolution of Generative AI and the Spread of Misinformation

In 2024, the rapid evolution of generative AI became widely apparent. While generative AI has great potential to help solve societal challenges, it has also fueled a surge in misinformation, fraud, and deceptive content.
A notable example occurred in the United States during the presidential election. In January 2024, more than 5,000 voters in New Hampshire received a deepfake robocall impersonating President Joe Biden. The message urged recipients not to vote in the primary election and misleadingly claimed that voting would "help re-elect Donald Trump." Although the suspect was later indicted, the case illustrated how deeply generative AI abuse had penetrated the political sphere.
Another example involved the news platform "BNN Breaking," headquartered in Hong Kong. Initially, the site attracted users by publishing AI generated versions of articles harvested from legitimate news outlets. Over time, however, it escalated to mass producing completely fabricated news articles using generative AI. Some of these articles were even republished by major media organizations before being verified. With over 10 million monthly visitors, it is believed the operation sought to generate advertising revenue through large-scale misinformation.
Generative AI misuse was also seen on Amazon Kindle, where multiple AI written biographies containing false information were published immediately after the death of well-known celebrities.
As countermeasures, technologies for verifying content authenticity-such as the C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) technical standard-are gaining attention and are expected to play a significant role in detecting misinformation and preventing its spread.

The New Threat: Cyberattacks Powered by Multi Agent AI

From 2025 onward, cyberattacks using multi-agent AI are emerging as a new and serious threat in the cybersecurity field. These attacks involve multiple AI agents acting in coordination, offering speed and efficiency far beyond traditional, human-driven cyberattacks.
In AI terminology, an "agent" is an autonomous system that perceives its environment, makes decisions, and takes actions to achieve specific goals without human intervention.
Multi-agent AI refers to a system where multiple such agents collaborate. In recent years, the development of platforms such as Microsoft's AutoGen and Google's Vertex AI has accelerated the adoption of these technologies.
For cybercriminal groups, repurposing multi-agent AI offers significant advantages. Traditional cyberattacks require human attackers to identify targets, scan for vulnerabilities, execute the intrusion, escalate privileges, spread laterally through networks, and exfiltrate data.
In contrast, multi-agent AI enables these processes to be divided among autonomous agents, operating automatically, continuously, and at speeds humans cannot match.
In response, defenders are exploring the use of multi-agent AI as well. Research is underway on systems that deploy AI agents across corporate devices, enabling real time collaboration to detect and mitigate threats. However, these defensive technologies are still in the early stages. As multi-agent AI continues to evolve beyond 2025, the technological arms race between attackers and defenders is expected to intensify.

NTT DATA Security Services

NTT DATA has been delivering cybersecurity services for more than 30 years. With over 7,500 security professionals worldwide and delivery centers in more than 80 locations, the company provides high-quality, cost effective solutions tailored to local laws and regulations.
In 2023, NTT DATA achieved the second largest global market share in managed security services (MSS). (*)
Given the rapid evolution of cyberattack techniques, organizations must stay prepared for emerging threats. To support this need, NTT DATA offers NTT DATA UnifiedMDR™, a comprehensive Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service.
NTT DATA's cybersecurity experts provide end to end support-from proactive prevention to minimizing damage during an incident. The service is characterized by two key strengths.

Figure 3: Overview of NTT DATA UnifiedMDR™ services

The first strength is NTT DATA's extensive experience in responding to security incidents worldwide over many years. The second is our proven track record in operating one of the world's largest Zero Trust environments on a global scale.
As a globally integrated group company, NTT DATA has established unified cybersecurity governance and a Zero Trust architecture across 59 countries and regions. We provide customers with solutions that leverage NTT DATA's ability to deliver a complete set of secure infrastructure-from data centers and networks to cloud environments and endpoints. This is supported by our world class, internally developed cybersecurity architecture, as well as the deep expertise gained from decades of incident response and global security operations.

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• (*) NTT DATA ranks second in the global market share in the "Gartner^® Market Share Analysis: Managed Security Services, Worldwide, 2023" Security Outsourcing Market Report

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NTT DATA Customer Support Use Cases

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