Cyberattacks shift from technical breaches to identity theft

Cybersecurity trends are shifting away from traditional technical exploits toward the misuse of legitimate login credentials. Instead of hacking into systems, attackers are increasingly logging in by exploiting identities, sessions, and authentication processes.

In Switzerland, the Federal Office for Cybersecurity recorded approximately 63,000 cyber incidents in 2024. Experts note that the attack surface is moving toward mobile channels, social engineering, and identity theft. Methods such as phishing, smishing, and vishing target human habits like trust and routine to bypass security barriers.

Globally, Kaspersky reported approximately 4.7 million attack attempts between July 2025 and June 2026 that mimicked workplace services like Zoom, Outlook, OneDrive, and Teams. A notable technique is device-code phishing, where attackers misuse native authorization flows in cloud environments, such as Microsoft 365. In these scenarios, users are tricked into completing an authentication process—including multi-factor authentication—for a session initiated by the attacker, granting the criminal access to emails, files, and communication tools.