- Google observed 75 zero-day bugs last year
- Most were used by state -sponsored actors
- Countries like China and North Korea were specifically mentioned
By 2024, Google’s threat information group (GIRL) discovered 75 zero-days vulnerabilities and argued that the majority were used in state-sponsored hacking campaigns. The company made these claims in “Hello Zero-Day My Old Friend, a 2024 utilization analysis” paper recently published.
In the report, Google says the number of zero-day deficiencies fell compared to 2023 (from 98 to 75). However, the four-year trend is that the speed of zero-day exploitation “continues to grow at a slow but steady pace.”
While consumer units continue to be the most affected targets, there is an increase in opponents that utilize business -specific technologies. By 2023, about one-third (37%) measured zero-day targeted corporate products that jumped to 44% last year. This, Google says, is primarily driven by the increased use of security and network software and appliances.
Governments by it again
In fact, zero-day vulnerabilities in security software and appliances were a high-value target in 2024. Google says it identified 20 security and network errors, which was over 60% of all zero-day utilization of business technologies. As the utilization of these products results in a more efficient and comprehensive system and networking compromise, Google Threateners’ focus on these technologies expects to continue to grow.
The biggest addicts of zero-day vulnerabilities are governments, Google says. “Between government-backed groups and customers of commercial surveillance providers, actors performing cyber-espionage operations accounted for over 50% of the vulnerabilities we could attribute in 2024,” the report said.
Google designated China as a great player in this regard, but also mentioned North Korea whose operative mixed espionage with financially motivated operations.
The number of Windows utilities increased to 22 (from 16 years before), while on Safari and iOS it fell (from 11 and 9 to 3 and 2). Android retained his “lucky number” 7, just as Chrome did. Firefox was up from zero in 2023 to one in 2024.
Via Ars Technica
