Eleanor Milner
Digital and eCommerce Assistant
September 27, 2021
Cyberattacks are becoming more frequent, varied, and open. Unless your business has been hiding under a rock for the past year, you’ll be aware of the rising importance of having strong, reliable, and efficient security. As many organisations were unexpectedly forced to move online during the pandemic, cyber-attacks increased by 400% according to HP. Understanding the changing landscape of security attacks is key to understanding the dangers to your business and essentially, in preventing issues before they occur.
As we slowly transition into a post-pandemic climate, staying aware of the changing security environment is key in strengthening your businesses own security protocols. Key vulnerabilities for enterprises are users opening email attachments, clicking on hyperlinks in emails, and downloading files from the web.
The H1 2021 HP Wolf Security Threat Insights Report takes a deep dive into the last 6 months emerging cybersecurity threats and exposes the attacks that are the highest risk to your network. Here we have put together the key takeaways from the report.
NOTABLE THREATS
- The multi-stage downloader has been used to target business executives: experts found targets were receiving a malicious zip attachment via email, however, only 21% of anti-virus scanners on VirusTotal indicated these as malicious allowing them to escalate.
- Resume-themed phishing campaigns: Following a record number of job vacancies reported in the UK, hackers are targeting businesses through resume-themed phishing campaigns. Commonly targeted sectors were manufacturing, commodity trading, maritime, property and industrial supplies.
- Use of CryptBot to drop banking Trojan, DanaBot: HP Wolf Security detected a campaign that delivered CryptBot, an information stealer which was then used to drop a banking Trojan, DanaBot, as a follow-up infection.
- Stealing Malware: HP discovered how easy it has become for cybercriminals to create their own malware-as-a-service-business, illustrating how it is even more important for enterprise defences to stay ahead of malware developers.
- Purple Fox compromises Internet Explorer: HP security team found a sample that attempted to exploit vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer which was a new addition to Purple Fox’s exploit arsenal.
NOTABLE TRENDS
- Archives have become the most popular malware delivery type: It was reported that the top email lures included purchase orders, invoices, product specifications, RFQs and quality control reports. HP concluded these suggested attackers are more interested in targeting businesses over individuals.
- COVID themed lures decrease: the more popular lures were themed as business transactions whilst covid-19 themed lures were less than 1%.
- Attackers preferred exotic file types: HP explains that email gateway scanners are less likely to decompress and examine these making them more likely to end up in the target’s inbox. Meanwhile, HP found excel spreadsheets are the second most popular file type.
- Microsoft Office Vulnerabilities are still being exploited: this highlights the need for enterprises to patch out of date office versions.
HP RECOMMENDATIONS
Staying familiar with the prevailing security climate is an essential way to pre-empt and avoid attacks by informing user communities and strengthening your security measures. Knowing your defence is on top performance is central in protecting your team’s productivity and guaranteeing trouble-free, undisturbed workflows.
Read the full report here
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