Cyber Security

Report: Healthcare, Manufacturing

Top Targets for Cyber Attacks

    NEW YORK -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- July 5, 2021 - Avanan, a leader in Cloud Email and Collaboration Security, announced on June 30 the release of the company's 1H 2021 Global Phish Cyber Attack Report, which analyzes today’s threat landscape, phishing vectors, and industry-based attacks, exposing healthcare and manufacturing as two of the top industries being targeted by hackers in the first half of the year.

    “With hospitals around the world being hit with ransomware attacks and manufacturers experiencing supply chain disruption due to cyber-attacks, the Avanan research shows that hackers are using one of the most basic tactics to get in ‒ phishing attacks,” said Gil Friedrich, CEO and Co-Founder of Avanan.

    According to Avanan’s security research and analysis, the most attacked industries are IT, healthcare, and manufacturing. IT saw over 9,000 phishing emails in a one-month span, out of an average of 376,914 total emails; healthcare saw over 6,000 phishing emails out of an average of 451,792 total emails; and manufacturing saw just under 6,000 phishing emails out of an average of 331,184 total emails.

    These industries are the most targeted because they hold incredibly valuable data from health records to social security numbers, combined with the fact that healthcare and manufacturing tend to use outdated tech and often have non-technical board of directors. In healthcare, in particular, the industry is largely unprepared. Though every industry gets attacked, the ones that hold the most data are the most at risk.

    For this report, Avanan security researchers analyzed over 905 million emails spanning a six-month period. Since Avanan works as a layer of security behind Microsoft’s EOP, ATP/Defender, Google Workspace, or any SEGs, this analysis only looks at the emails these other layers did not quarantine. The report reflects an analysis of the most sophisticated and evasive attacks in use today.

    Key Findings:

• Because threats have gotten so advanced, AI is required to stop the majority of attacks missed by legacy solutions. Without the use of sophisticated AI, 51% of attacks would be missed and reach end-users.
• Impersonation and credential harvesting attacks remain top phishing vectors. Credential harvesting, 54% of all phishing attacks, has risen by nearly 15% when compared to 2019; 20.7% of all phishing attacks are Business Email Compromise (BEC); and only 2.2% of phishing attacks are extortion.
• Hackers are starting to target lower-hanging fruit rather than C-level executives. Now, 51.9% of all impersonation emails attempted to impersonate a non-executive in the organization. In fact, non-executives are targeted 77% more often.
• Misconfiguration is playing a rising role in phishing. Over 8% of phishing emails ended up in the user’s inbox simply because of an allow or block list misconfiguration, a 5% increase from last year, and 15.4% of email attacks are on an Allow List.
• The most commonly used tactic is using non-standard characters and limited sender reputation. Non-standard characters are used in 50.6% of phishing links and 84.3% of phishing emails do not have a significant historical reputation with the victim.
  

    Avanan anticipates that cyberattacks will continue to explode with healthcare and education being hit hardest, predicting that attacks on the education sector will surge over the next six months with massive increases when school returns in the fall. In addition, Avanan predicts COVID related phishing emails will decrease, while office place related phishing emails will increase. As workers around the globe return to the office, there will be a spike in phishing attacks leveraging services like fax, scanners, copiers, targeting the things used in office life that sat dormant for the last year and a half.

    For more information and to download the report, please visit: https://www.avanan.com/resources/white-papers/1h-cyber-attack-report.

 

Cybercrime

Report: Pandemic Stirs

63% Spike In Cyber Attacks

Security Efforts, Priorities Lag Behind

By Steve Rensberry
RP News

-------------------

ISSA graphic. One survey response.

   EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - (RP NEWS) - 8/1/2020 - A newly released report from the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) and Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) says the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” for cybercriminals, and cites the results of a survey showing a 63 percent increase in cyberattacks since the crisis began.
   The survey was conducted by the two groups, culminating in a report representing input from some 364 cybersecurity and IT professionals.
   “COVID-19 had a wide-ranging impact on individuals on the security staff. With 84 percent of cybersecurity professionals working exclusively from home during the pandemic and almost two-thirds believing that their organizations will be more flexible with work-at-home policies moving forward, COVID-19 has personally impacted cybersecurity professionals in their jobs and in their lives,” Senior Principal Analyst and ESG Fellow Jon Oltsik stated in the July 30, 2020 release. “This is in addition to the ongoing impact on organizations and security teams from the yearly worsening problem of the cybersecurity skills shortage,” Jon Oltsik, Senior Principal Analyst and ESG Fellow. 
   An associated report, The Impact of the COVID 19 Pandemic on Cybersecurity, is available here.
   Highlights of the report, as noted in the release:

•    Organizations were only fairly prepared for the global pandemic. Thirty-nine percent of respondents claim that they were very prepared to secure WFH devices and applications while 34 percent were prepared. Twenty-seven percent were underprepared. Therefore, the pandemic drove rapid changes, changing workloads, and new priorities.
•    COVID-19 and WFH are driving improved collaboration. Slightly more than one-third of organizations have experienced significant improvement in coordination between business, IT, and security executives as a result of COVID-19 issues and 38 percent have seen marginal relationship improvements.
•    COVID-19/WFH have had an impact on cybersecurity professionals and their organizations alike. The research indicates that COVID-19 has forced cybersecurity professionals to change their priorities/activities, increased their workloads, increased the number of meetings they have had to attend, and increased the stress levels associated with their jobs. Meanwhile 48 percent say that WFH has impacted the security team’s ability to support new business applications/initiatives.
•    Most organizations don’t believe the pandemic will increase 2020 cybersecurity spending. Only 20 percent believe that COVID-19 security requirements will lead to an increase in security spending in 2020, while 25 percent think their organizations will be forced to decrease security spending this year. Where they expect their spending to increase, at least half pointed to priority areas being identity and access management, endpoint security, web and email security, and data security.
•    COVID-19 may impact cybersecurity priorities. ESG/ISSA believes that while it is noteworthy that 30% of the cybersecurity professionals participating in this project say that cybersecurity will be a higher priority, 70% report that they don’t know or don’t believe that this crisis will lead to cybersecurity becoming a higher priority.

   ISSA International Board President Candy Alexander expressed surprise that cybersecurity has not become more of a priority after all that has happened.
   “While it’s promising to see that the majority of organizations were able to handle the COVID-19 pandemic fairly well, it is surprising that we are not seeing an increase in cybersecurity spending or prioritization following this event,” Alexander said. “If anything this should serve as a wakeup call that cybersecurity is what enables businesses to remain open and operational. Organizations prioritizing cybersecurity as a result of the pandemic will likely emerge as leaders in the next wave of cybersecurity process innovation and best practices.”
   The increase in cyber attacks and cybercrime has been noted by several news outlets, over the past couple of week especially.
   “Large swaths of the global economy have shut down during the global COVID-10 pandemic, but cybercriminals haven't been taking any time off. On the contrary, cyberattacks actually spiked during the first half of 2020 with attackers finding new ways to exploit the conditions brought on by widespread lockdowns,” writes Freelance Journalist Cynthia Harvey in a June 24, 2020 article for Information Week, available here: 10 Cyberattacks on the Rise During the Pandemic.
   Harvey cites an FBI spokesperson as saying the Internet Crime Complaint Center received close to the same number of complaints as of May 28 this year that they had for all of 2019.

Reference:
ESG-ISSA Research Report - Covid-19-July-2020
Resource Guide for Cybersecurity During Pandemic

Cybercrime Complaints Suggest Threat is Growing

By Steve Rensberry
rensberrypublishing.com 

   (RPC) - 11/16/10 - Hitting number 2 million on the cybercrime complaint meter is just one piece of evidence pointing to the growth of online crime, a newly released report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center suggests.
   In an announcement made this week, the center said that it had hit the new high after reaching complaint number 1 million in 2007, seven years after it was formed in early 2000.
   "It took half that time to receive the 2 millionth complain, which illustrates the IC3's increased visibility and the continued growth of cybercrime," the announcement says.
   All told, the IC3 has served as the sounding board for 757,016 complaints in the past 10 years, which it has referred to the appropriate authorities for investigation. It pegs the total financial loss at $1.7 billion.
   "Many complaints involved identity theft, such as loss of personally identifying data, and the unauthorized use of credit cards or bank accounts," the report says.
   But as broad as the criteria is for what constitutes a crime, judging the actual extent of it may be difficult.
   Security software giant Symantec released a study in September that suggested virtually the same thing -- that Internet crime was going gonzo.
   Even with the obvious vested interest, the Symantec study did carry some degree of balance, pointing to malware attacks as the largest and most common form of Internet crime. Given that it is the nature of most malicious software, malware in particular, to replicate and distribute itself automatically, apart from human hands, it may be prudent not to deem each infected computer as a distinct and separate crime. For purposes of definitive trend analysis, the verdict may still be out.
   The full 2010 Cybercrime Report from Symantec is available here: http://www.symantec.com/redirects/norton/norton_com/cybercrimereport/
   The Internet Crime Complaint Center report is available here: http://www.ic3.gov/media/default.aspx
   Still, Symantec does have a point to make, as it states in its preface to the report:
   "Cybercrime has become a silent global digital epidemic," it says. "This disturbing truth is uncovered by this new ground-breaking study into the dangers, financial cost and emotional fallout of unprotected and unethical life online."
   There is also the issue of just how very easy it is to commit crime online. Ordinary people who would never consider taking something that does not belong to them while in a physical store, will and do engage in online piracy -- partly because of the anonymity but largely because of the simply ease in which it can be done. Copy. Paste. Click. Download. It's gone beyond simple.
   The Internet Crime Complaint Center is jointly operated by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.

For further reading:
Internet Crime Complaint Center
Cybercrime is Rampant Around the World, Says Study
Looks To Good To Be True
Cybercrime and Intellectual Property