Cybersecurity solutions company Fortinet came out with the latest semi-annual FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report, which said threat intelligence from the second half of 2020 demonstrates an unprecedented cyber threat landscape where cyber adversaries maximized the constantly expanding attack surface to scale threat efforts around the world. “Adversaries proved to be highly adaptable, creating waves of disruptive and sophisticated attacks. They targeted the abundance of remote workers or learners outside the traditional network, but also showed renewed agility in attempts to target digital supply chains and even the core network. For a detailed view of the report, as well as some important takeaways,” said the report. Some of the highlights of the report are:
- Onslaught of ransomware continues – a 7-fold increase in overall ransomware activity compared to 1H 2020. The evolution of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), a focus on big ransoms for big targets, and the threat of disclosing stolen data if demands were not met combined to create conditions for this massive growth.
- Supply chain takes center stage – as the SolarWinds breach unfolded, a significant amount of information was shared by affected organizations.
- Adversaries target online moves – cybercriminals use the most popular techniques to establish a foothold within organizations and the top attack target was Microsoft platforms, leveraging the documents most people use and consume during a typical workday.
- Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups continue to exploit the covid pandemic in a variety of ways, the most common among them being attacks focused on gathering personal information in bulk, stealing intellectual property, and nabbing intelligence aligned with the APT group’s national priorities.
