Cyber experts say future attacks to rely on vulnerabilities

Cyber-attack victims are in a never-ending race safeguarding their valuable data and so do the attackers who spare no stones unturned in exploring newer methods for capturing the data and jeopardising the course of business. A recent study revealed that the trend of known vulnerabilities being used in major attacks will continue in 2018 as well as corporate attack surfaces expand and expose more security loopholes.

Experts say that patch management and employee education should be of top priority for corporates in the Sultanate of Oman and elsewhere in the region for all executives to protect an organisation’s most critical data.

“Vulnerabilities will make the biggest waves in the coming year in terms of cyber-attacks,” said Rik Ferguson, VP of security research for Trend Micro, in their recent study. “Many devastating cyberattacks in 2017 leveraged known vulnerabilities that could have been prevented had they been patched beforehand. This trend will continue next year as corporate attack surfaces expand and expose more security holes. While this remains a challenge for enterprises, executives should prioritise vulnerability management as they make 2018 cybersecurity plans, particularly in the looming shadow of GDPR implementation.”

The report further states that across the middle east region, ransomware will continue to be a mainstay due to its proven success. There will be an increase in targeted ransomware attacks, in which the criminals go after a single organisation to disrupt operations and force a larger ransom payout.

Additionally, the Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks will also continue to gain popularity with attackers, as the return on investment for successful attacks is quite high.

Few months ago, WannaCry shook the world as the cyber hi-jack accounted for more than 45 per cent of all ransomware tracked, closely followed by Cerber at 44.2 per cent, according to Sophos’ most recent Malware Report. In September alone, 30.4 per cent of malicious Android malware processed by SophosLabs was ransomware. This is expected to jump to approximately 45 per cent in coming months. The majority of these attacks have targeted Windows users, but the number of attacks on other platforms is increasing, including those targeting Android, Macs and Linux.

To keep these attacks at bay, experts added, the fast-changing technology landscape will require reliable patch management to block latest threats.

“Ransomware attacks have shifted in focus in the past two years, towards industries which are most likely to pay up, such as healthcare, government, critical infrastructure, and small businesses. Due to it being one of the most lucrative industries from ransomware payments or selling medical records, Healthcare has been a big target in 2017 and will without a doubt continue that way into 2018, said Harish Chib, vice president, Middle East & Africa of Sophos 2017.

KABEER YOUSUF