What businesses were on cyber criminals’ hit list in 2024?

As the digital scam landscape evolves at an unprecedented pace, technology, finance and transport operators continue to be the main targets for criminals, a report from a Belfast law firm has revealed.

Pinsent Masons’ sixth cyber report, launched at its Soloist office in Lanyon Place to coincide with CyberNI Week 2025, found that technology clients comprised 28% of all cases investigated by the firm’s 23-strong cyber team last year.

This was followed by finance, transport and healthcare, which each accounted for 12% of the workload.

And known incidents where business e-mails were compromised rose by 21% last year.

It comes as UK-wide figures show that the economy is haemorrhaging money to fraud, with the National Audit Office estimating that fraud and error will cost taxpayers up to £81 billion in 2023-24.

According to Laura Gillespie, a partner at Pinsent Masons specialising in cyber and privacy, nearly half (48%) of all incident-type cases handled by the cyber team in Belfast and Britain in 2024 involved the use of ransomware, a common technique that uses malware to access sensitive information or personal data before encrypting it.

In a quarter of all incidents, cash demands were made by the threat actor group, with the single largest ransom demand in 2024 totalling $70million (£55m) from BlackCat group, which was successfully negotiated down to $2.5million (£2m) by the cyber team.

“What this report confirms is that criminals do not discriminate by country, business size, or business type,” Laura said.

“That’s why, whatever sector an organisation happens to operate in, it must always be on its guard, and never become complacent with matters concerning cyber security.

“Ongoing investment in cyber defences has never been more important to help prevent, or minimise, the risk of ransomware-style attacks suffered by businesses,” she added.

Some breaches were seasonally led, the report has found, with ‘credential stuffing’ attacks on retail clients spiking during the autumn period as Christmas approached.

This is a practice that works by initially fraudulently gaining valid login and password combinations for one site before using these to access legitimate accounts on other sites.

Meanwhile, the total volume of successful phishing e-mail attacks reported in 2023 (19%) compared to 2024 (16%) was largely unchanged.

Laura added: “Against the backdrop of today’s digital landscape, every business needs to prioritise cyber security because it acts as the first line of defence against ransomware and phishing attacks.

“Ensuring staff training and awareness remains a key part of cyber awareness programmes is crucial. Protecting sensitive data and maintaining trust with customers and staff should not be an afterthought; it is essential for survival in an evolving online world.”