🔐 The MENA region saw a dramatic 236% y-o-y rise in DDoS attacks during 2Q 2025, setting an all-time record for the region, according to a report shared with EnterpriseAM in August by cybersecurity firm StormWall. The sharp rise in cyberattacks was largely fueled by escalating geopolitical tensions, according to the report, particularly due to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and surrounding countries, turning the region’s digital infrastructure into a battleground for state-sponsored actors and hacktivist groups.

DDoS attacks, or distributed denial-of-service, work by overwhelming a website, server, or network with a flood of internet traffic from multiple sources, preventing legitimate users from accessing the service. These attacks can shut down businesses for hours or days, causing significant financial loss and damage to reputation.

The financial sector emerged as the main target across the region, accounting for 38% of all DDoS attacks in 2Q 2025 — a 26% increase compared to the previous year. Around 79% of cyberattacks within this sector targeted banking APIs and payment processing systems. “The biggest attack on the financial sector was 1.8 Tbit/s and targeted a bank in the UAE,” according to the StormWall report. “The longest attack lasted six days and was about 380 Gbps. On average, the attacks lasted 14 minutes.”

The government sector was the second most targeted industry at 16%, seeing a 53% y-o-y increase. Telecommunications came in third at 14%, with mobile network operators bearing 61% of attacks in that sector.

Saudi Arabia remained the most targeted country in the region at 22%, though its share dropped from 28% in 1Q 2025. Palestine and the occupied Palestinian territories saw their share jump by 73%, growing from 11% in 1Q to 19% in 2Q, while Iran’s share rose slightly from 16% to 17%. During 2Q, a total of 8.2 mn DDoS attacks targeted the Israeli occupation’s digital infrastructure — more than four times the number in 1Q.

Egypt has not been spared the onslaught. Egypt’s growing reliance on digital infrastructure and economic automation has placed it squarely in the crosshairs of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks.

Egypt ranks second in Africa for cyberattacks, according to cybersecurity firm PositiveTechnologies, accounting for 13% of incidents in the continent. Last year alone, more than a hundred listings on dark web forums offered stolen Egyptian databases for sale or distribution, including one alarming post advertising the personal data of 85 mn Egyptian citizens. Egypt’s vital systems are also in hackers’ sights, with power grids, banking networks, transportation, and government operations facing relentless threats.

How to protect your business: Cybersecurity experts recommend several preventative measures to prevent cyberattacks. The first is to strengthen your defenses by deploying multi-layered DDoS protection solutions and cloud-based scrubbing services that can absorb major attacks. Using threat detection systems that spot probing activities before full-scale attacks launch, using multi-factor authentication systems and end-to-end encryption, training employees to recognize phishing and social engineering attempts, and maintaining regular, secure, offline backups of critical business data for quick recovery could save you a lot of grief (and operational and reputational damage).

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