One in Ten Targeted Attack Groups Use Malware Designed to Disrupt: Symantec

Cyber criminals are rapidly adding cryptojacking to their arsenal and creating a highly profitable new revenue stream, as the ransomware market becomes overpriced and overcrowded, according to Symantec's (Nasdaq: SYMC) Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), Volume 23, released today.

“Cryptojacking is a rising threat to cyber and personal security,” said Tarun Kaura, Director, Enterprise Security Product Management, Asia Pacific and Japan, Symantec. “The massive profit incentive puts people, devices and organizations at risk of unauthorized coinminers siphoning resources from their systems, further motivating criminals to infiltrate everything from home PCs to giant data centers.”

Symantec's ISTR provides a comprehensive view of the threat landscape, including insights into global threat activity, cyber criminal trends and motivations for attackers. The report analyzes data from the Symantec Global Intelligence Network™, the largest civilian threat collection network in the world, records events from 126.5 million attack sensors worldwide and monitors threat activities in over 157 countries and territories. Key highlights include:

Cryptojacking Attacks Explode by 8,500%

During the past year, an astronomical rise in cryptocurrency values triggered a cryptojacking gold rush with cyber criminals attempting to cash in on a volatile market. Detections of coinminers on endpoint computers increased by 8,500 percent in 2017. India ranks second in Asia-Pacific Japan (APJ) region, ninth globally in terms of crypto mining activities.

With a low barrier of entry – only requiring a couple lines of code to operate – cyber criminals are harnessing stolen processing power and cloud CPU usage from consumers and enterprises to mine cryptocurrency. Coinminers can slow devices, overheat batteries, and in some cases, render devices unusable. For enterprise organizations, coinminers can put corporate networks at risk of shutdown and inflate cloud CPU usage, adding cost.

“Now you could be fighting for resources on your phone, computer or IoT device as attackers use them for profit,” added Tarun. “People need to expand their defenses or they will pay for the price for someone else using their device.”

IoT devices continue to be ripe targets for exploitation. Symantec found a 600 percent increase in overall IoT attacks in 2017, which means that cyber criminals could exploit the connected nature of these devices to mine en masse. Macs are not immune either with Symantec detecting an 80 percent increase in coin mining attacks against Mac OS. By leveraging browser-based attacks, criminals do not need to download malware to a victim’s Mac or PC to carry out cyber attacks. India ranks among the top five countries as source for IoT attacks.

 Majority of Targeted Attackers Use Single Method to Infect Victims

The number of targeted attack groups is on the rise with Symantec now tracking 140 organized groups. Last year, 71 percent of all targeted attacks started with spear phishing – the oldest trick in the book – to infect their victims. As targeted attack groups continue to leverage tried and true tactics to infiltrate organizations, the use of zero-day threats is falling out of favor. Only 27 percent of targeted attack groups have been known to use zero-day vulnerabilities at any point in the past.

The security industry has long discussed what type of destruction might be possible with cyber attacks. This conversation has now moved beyond the theoretical, with one in ten targeted attack groups using malware designed to disrupt.

 Implanted Malware Grows by 200 %, Compromising Software Supply Chain

Symantec identified a 200 percent increase in attackers injecting malware implants into the software supply chain in 2017. That’s equivalent to one attack every month as compared to four attacks the previous year. Hijacking software updates provides attackers with an entry point for compromising well-guarded networks. The Petya outbreak was the most notable example of a supply chain attack. After using Ukrainian accounting software as the point of entry, Petya used a variety of methods to spread laterally across corporate networks to deploy their malicious payload.

 Mobile Malware Continues to Surge

Threats in the mobile space continue to grow year-over-year, including the number of new mobile malware variants which increased by 54 percent. Symantec blocked an average of 24,000 malicious mobile applications each day last year. India also featured amongst the top 10 list of countries where mobile malware was most frequently blocked in 2017. As older operating systems continue to be in use, this problem is exacerbated. For example, with the Android operating system, only 20 percent of devices are running the newest version and only 2.3 percent are on the latest minor release.

Mobile users also face privacy risks from grayware apps that aren’t completely malicious but can be troublesome. Symantec found that 63 percent of grayware apps leak the device’s phone number. With grayware increasing by 20 percent in 2017, this isn’t a problem that’s going away.

 Business-Savvy Cyber Criminals Price Ransomware for Profit

In 2016, the profitability of ransomware led to a crowded market. India ranks fourth globally with eight percent of global detections of ransomware. In 2017, the market made a correction, lowering the average ransom cost to $522 and signaling that ransomware has become a commodity. Many cyber criminals may have shifted their focus to coin mining as an alternative to cashing in while cryptocurrency values are high. Additionally, while the number of ransomware families decreased, the number of ransomware variants increased by 46 percent, indicating that criminal groups are innovating less but are still very productive.

From the Experts: Security Best Practices

As attackers evolve, there are many steps businesses can take to protect themselves. As a starting point, Symantec recommends the following best practices.

For businesses:

• Don’t get caught flat-footed: Use advanced threat intelligence solutions to help you find indicators of compromise and respond faster to incidents.
• Prepare for the worst: Incident management ensures your security framework is optimized, measurable and repeatable, and that lessons learned improve your security posture. Consider adding a retainer with a third-party expert to help manage crises.
• Implement a multi-layered defense: Implement a multilayered defense strategy that addresses attack vectors at the gateway, mail server and endpoint. This also should include two-factor authentication, intrusion detection or protection systems (IPS), website vulnerability malware protection, and web security gateway solutions throughout the network.
• Provide ongoing training about malicious email: Educate employees on the dangers posed by spear-phishing emails and other malicious email attacks, including where to internally report such attempts.
• Monitor your resources: Make sure to monitor your resources and networks for abnormal and suspicious behavior and correlate it with threat intelligence from experts.

For consumers:

• Change the default passwords on your devices and services: Use strong and unique passwords for computers, IoT devices and Wi-Fi networks. Don’t use common or easily guessable passwords such as “123456” or “password”.
• Keep your operating system and software up to date: Software updates will frequently include patches for newly discovered security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.
• Be extra careful on email: Email is one of the top infection methods. Delete any suspicious-looking email you receive, especially if they contain links and/or attachments. Be extremely wary of any Microsoft Office email attachment that advises you to enable macros to view its content.
• Back up your files: Backing up your data is the single most effective way of combating a ransomware infection. Attackers can have leverage over their victims by encrypting their files and leaving them inaccessible. If you have backup copies, you can restore your files once the infection has been cleaned up.