The year of 2017 has been tough for enterprise security teams. Attacks like Petya and Wannacry suggest that the impact scale is increasing dramatically. The recent leak of government-developed malware and hoarded vulnerabilities has given cybercriminals greater capabilities. IT is struggling to keep pace with the flow of important security software patches and updates, and the continued adoption of new technologies like the internet of things (IoT) creates new vulnerabilities to contend with.
Finally, 2017 going to end. So, get ready to face 2018 cyber Attacks with FireEye Lab's Cyber Security predictions 2018.
What cloud trends do you expect to see as we move into 2018?
This past year was something of a turning point for public cloud adoption – not just with regard to traditional public cloud providers such as Amazon and Azure, but also with software as a service. This means people are really starting to put critical data into the cloud. We saw that some of the largest companies are starting some really major cloud initiatives where they may have one or two absolutely critical applications that they’ve successfully migrated.
What does that mean for attackers?
That means attackers are going to follow that data into the cloud, regardless of what the data is – be it credit cards or medical records or something else. Attackers won’t say, “Well, I'm not really interested in doing cloud stuff. I'm going to stick with on-prem.” They'll certainly move to trying to get to the IP that’s in the cloud.
Making sure that you have full visibility into all the actions that are occurring starts to move some of the traditional defenses from things like exploits into a little bit more of the business logic layer. Still, vulnerable is vulnerable, so ensure everything running in the cloud is secure.
Targeting Inherent Trustin the Software Supply Chain
Malware authors are increasingly taking advantage of inherent trust between users and software providers. Users inherently trust software developers to provide updates for their products that would add new functionalities or fix security bugs, and they don’t expect the updates to be tainted with malicious code. In supply chain attacks, cyber threat groups target the build servers, update servers and other parts of the development environment. The hackers can then inject malware into software updates and software releases, thus potentially infecting users through trusted official software distribution channels.
What Will happen?
IN 2018, we may see an increase in ransom and extortion attacks relating to GDPR (and perhaps other regulations) as attackers seek to capitalize on a potential fear of large fines. An example of this would be an attacker compromising an organization – or even tricking the organization into believing they have been compromised – and promising to keep the breach from going public for the right price.
dramatically in the past few years, and recent attacks leveraging major vulnerabilities show that attackers are still finding success with the file and system locking malware. We expect to see continued use of ransomware in 2018, especially as administrators are slow to patch and update their systems. Additionally, ransomware will continue to be prolific as long as the ransomware authors continue to find the business lucrative.
Increase in Cloud-based Attacks and Evasion Techniques In recent years, we have seen an uptick in security technologies and infrastructure using cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, and more. We have also seen attackers leveraging these cloud services for various purposes, including to host URLs for phishing and to distribute malware. Hosting on known file-sharing services and leveraging cloud service providers is useful for attackers because it helps them bypass the initial domain reputation checks performed by most security engines. Additionally, with cloud offerings becoming more prominent every day, we expect attackers will become more aware of cloud environments and, thus, adapt their behaviors accordingly (traditionally, we have seen malware binaries detecting virtual environments). For defenders, this means either restricting downloads from cloud service provider IP addresses or limiting downloads.
2018 Major Attacks
- Increase in the Internet of Things Attacks by Exploiting Vulnerabilities.
- Multi-vector Phishing Attacks Involving a Variety of Evasion Techniques
- Increase in Cloud-based Attacks
- Malware Attacks to Targeting Cryptocurrencies
The Battle Ahead
From innovative attacks and malware to incoming laws and regulations, to changes in nation-state activity, it’s evident that 2018 has the potential to be another event-filled year in cybersecurity. But while there are many new things to look forward to in the next 12 months, and many different ways to stay prepared, we also cannot sleep on the timeless fundamentals that continue to keep us secure.
Finally, it’s important to simply keep a positive attitude in this industry. Some people think it’s all fear, uncertainty and doubt, and that there are no answers, but this is exactly the type of thinking that hampers innovation and ultimately lets the bad guys gain an edge. Remain optimistic – we’re going to manage our way through all the uncertainty in the industry. Security is in our DNA, and we are going to fix the problems, or at least treat them in ways where all the promise of our increasingly connected world is going to become a reality
FireEye Security Predictions 2018 - Click Here to Download
