A report disclosing details about Cyber Threats that will prevail across the world in 2020 was released by Cybersecurity Firm Check Point early today. And it highlights the attack vectors and techniques which will be employed by cyber crooks to attack organizations irrespective of their size or field.
Check Point Cyberthreat highlights include
Surge in Botnet armies- A 50% rise in Botnet armies is expected to be witnessed in 2020- according to the security researchers at Check Point. The researchers say that last year Emotet malware was most commonly used by cybercriminals through botnets apart from S$Xtortion email activity and DDoS attacks.
Use of Cryptominers is said to increase- As the value of crypto-currency slightly declined and closure of coin-hive operations by several governments on a joint note is said to have dented the aspirations of hackers distributing crypto-mining malware last year. However, this is said to change by mid-2020 as the use of crypto was witnessed to have increased during the Christmas 2019 which indicates an increase in value gradually by mid this year due to an imbalance between demand and availability. So, as the use of Cryptominers remains low at risk and will reward criminals heavily, the distribution of such malware is estimated to increase by the 3Q of this year.
Ransomware developers will hit selected targets- The city administrations across the United States witnessed a surge in ransomware attacks. The reason, the target points are making themselves vulnerable by using obsolete hardware and software. Also as they lack basic awareness about the current cyber landscape, it is said to help the hackers gain max revenue with a minimal investment in 2020.
Mobile attacks- The year 2018 witnessed an increase in mobile attacks by 33% on organizations. However, only 27% of them were impacted in 2019. Check Point researchers estimate that the percentage of organizations impacted by mobile attacks will slightly witness a downfall in 2020 as companies are increasingly aware of the threat and are deploying threat monitoring solutions to protect their mobile devices. But there is no certainty that the downfall in mobile attacks will be witnessed for sure.
Magecart attacks- The year 2019 witnessed an increase in Magecart attacks by 19% and this year the threat level is said to slightly increase by 3% as hackers are finding it easy to inject malicious codes into e-commerce websites to steal customer details such as payment card details. Check Point research claims that such attacks will hit thousands of websites in this year related to hotel chains as companies in this sector are failing to take this threat on a serious note.
Cloud storage platforms- As the debate on who is going to protect the data when stored on the cloud platforms continues between CSPs and customers, it is hackers who are going to take full advantage of the situation in the current year. As the use of cloud services among enterprises has increased by 90% in the past two years, still 67% of security teams complain that they lack visibility when it comes to security, compliance and cloud infrastructure. Check Point estimates that the magnitude of attacks on Cloud will increase by 27% in 2020 as many companies still do not know the basic cyber hygiene which has to be followed while moving their data and apps to the cloud. Furthermore, the mis-configuraton of cloud resources is also said to add fuel to this trend as it will help hackers infiltrate into networks with ease and steal data which thereafter is sold on the dark web for monetary benefits.
