Unraveling the dynamics of the cyber threat landscape: Major shifts examined through the recent societal events

The continuous expansion of cyberspace offers numerous advantages but also broadens the cybersecurity attack surface, thereby affecting the resilience of critical infrastructure and societal systems. Given the complexity of factors affecting cybersecurity, a data-centric approach is needed, which involves leveraging existing datasets on cyber incidents and utilizing advanced data analytics techniques for enhanced preparedness against evolving cyber threats. In this study, we optimize past cyberattack data for statistical analysis and introduce a methodology for detecting significant shifts in cyberattack patterns through intervention analysis. By applying this approach, we correlate major shifts in the cyber threat landscape over the past six years with critical societal events like COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine War, offering insights meaningful for both society and policy formulation.