NSFOCUS reported that, beginning September 1, it "mitigated" 133,254 attacks targeting the G20 network, and an additional 1.9 million attacks on organizations providing services to the summit. The company claims that it parried 1,984 distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks targeting the network, plus 169,919 web attacks on G20 and G20-affiliated networks.
The US, Russia and Brazil were the most prevalent countries of origin of the attacks, NSFOCUS said. Brazil recently drew attention as a cybercrime hotspot, and is the second-largest cybercrime generator in the world, according to a 2015 Dark Reading report.
"Securing an event of the size and prominence of G20 is an enormous undertaking," said Richard Zhao, NSFOCUS's senior vice president of Global Threat Research, in a company statement. "Cybercrime is evolving with hackers moving beyond traditional attacks to more advanced threats, and geopolitical conferences are always an ideal target for malicious activity. In order to combat these threats and ensure the security of the summit, NSFOCUS took a holistic approach and implemented an integrated and layered security solution to protect the G20. As a result, the event carried on as planned, and the striking number of incoming attacks did not disrupt activities."
Cybersecurity was on the agenda at the summit, and US President Barack Obama said afterward that he discussed the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A communique addressing commercial cyberespionage came out of the 2015 G20 summit in Turkey, where leaders affirmed that “states have a special responsibility to promote security, stability, and economic ties with other nations" in the digital world.
"In support of that objective, we affirm that no country should conduct or support ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors," the lengthy communique read, in part.
