● OVERVIEW OF 2024 ANOTHER RECORD YEAR we did not need No one expected 2024 to be a quiet year in cyberspace, as peaceful as a Sunday morning in a small Estonian town. But we also did not anticipate that the number of impactful incidents recorded by CERT-EE would double from the previous record high. L ast year, the number of incidents with impact soared to 6,515 from 3,314 the year before. CERT-EE’s monitoring team, on duty around the clock, registered an average of 18 incidents per day. Where did this surge come from? A SURGE IN PHISHING AND SCAM WEBSITES Fortunately, the increase was not driven by incidents that shook the foundations of society or affected hundreds of thousands of people at once. As in previous years, phishing and scam websites made up the majority of impactful incidents. Their number grew 2.5 times within a 8 year, rising from half to two-thirds of all recorded incidents. Phishing and fraud schemes come in many forms, like a patchwork quilt. Some scams are as classic as ever, such as fake banking websites that are nearly indistinguishable from legitimate ones. Victims think they are entering their PIN to access their account, but in reality, they are handing it over to fraudsters, who simultaneously access the actual banking website and empty the victims’ accounts. Once the funds are drained, scammers often attempt to take out loans in the victim’s name and transfer the money to their own accounts. Fake delivery notices, sent in the name of well-known courier companies, also remain CYBER SECURITY IN ESTONIA 2025