Cyber attacks are increasingly rapidly, from malware, data theft, distributed denial of service, to ransomware where device and data access are traded for financial gains. Of all the cyber threats, ransomware attacks are very damaging as businesses can be locked out of their own data, if current data backups are not religiously carried out.
Check Point Research has highlighted how cyber attacks have become firmly entrenched as a state-level weapon, including the new ransomware method of ‘country extortion’ and state-affiliated hacktivism, and the expansion of ransomware as the number one threat, in their latest report.
Besides insight into the evolution of cyber attacks as a state-level weapon complementing actual military conflict, and the elevation of ransomware utilized in nation-state level attacks for financial and social gain, the report – titled ‘Cyber Attack Trends: 2022 Mid-Year Report’ – also delves into the growth of cloud supply chain attacks through new sources of modules in the open-source community.
“The war in Ukraine has dominated the headlines in the first half of 2022 and we can only hope that it will be brought to a peaceful conclusion soon,” said Check Point Software VP research Maya Horowitz.
“Its impact on the cyber space has been dramatic in both scope and scale, and we have seen huge increases in cyber attacks against organizations in all sectors and all countries this year. Unfortunately, this will only get worse especially with ransomware now being the number one threat to organizations. However, with the right expertise, strategy and cyber security solutions in place, companies are able to prevent attacks from happening.”
Top predictions for H2 highlighted in the report include:
Ransomware will become a much more fragmented ecosystem – while ransomware groups have become more structured and operate like regular businesses, with set targets to hit, there will be a lesson learned from the Conti ransomware group, whose size and power garnered too much attention, which led to its downfall.
More diverse email infection chains – due to the implementation of internet macros being blocked by default in Microsoft office, the more sophisticated malware families will accelerate the development of new infection chains, with different file types that are password protected to prevent detection as sophisticated social engineering attacks increase.
Hacktivism will continue to evolve – hacktivist groups will continue to align their attacks with the agenda of their chosen nation state, particularly as the Russia-Ukraine war is still ongoing.
Continued attacks on decentralized blockchain networks with expected first attacks in Metaverse – with major incidents relating to blockchain platforms, such as a vulnerability on Rarible marketplace or ApeCoin Airdrop vulnerability, Check Point expects to see continued efforts by hackers to breach and hijack crypto assets.
Source: asiainsurancereview.com
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