In the cyber arms race, the criminal community has often had a distinct advantage due to the growing cyberskills gap, the expanding digital attack surface, and by leveraging the element of surprise with tactics such as social engineering to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals. As per IT security firm Fortinet, research from Q4 2019 not only shows that cybercriminals continue to attempt to exploit any possible opportunity throughout the digital infrastructure, but that they are maximising global economic and political realities to further enable their goals.
According to the latest FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report, global trends demonstrate that the prevalence and detection of threats may differ by geography, but the sophistication and automation of attacks remain consistent everywhere. In addition, the need to prioritise cybersecurity hygiene remains urgent around the world as threats are scaling faster than ever before.
Michael Joseph, director, System Engineering, India & Saarc, Fortinet, says, “To get out ahead of the cycle of increasingly sophisticated and automated threats, organisations need to use the same sorts of technologies and strategies to defend their networks that criminals are using to attack them. That means adopting integrated platforms that leverage the power and resources of AI-driven threat intelligence and playbooks to enable protection and visibility across the digital infrastructure.”
Research shows significant levels of activity across regions associated with Charming Kitten, an Iran-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group in Q4. Active since around 2014, the threat actor has been associated with numerous cyberespionage campaigns. Recent activity suggests that the threat actor has expanded into the election disruption business.
Among other findings, IoT devices continue to be challenged with exploitable software and these threats can affect unexpected devices such as wireless IP cameras.
Then, spam continues to be one of the top issues for organiaations and individuals to deal with. This quarter’s report combines the volume of spam flow between nations with data showing the ratios of spam sent vs. spam received. The majority of spam volume seems to follow economic and political trends.
