Security Experts Discover Threat Actors Becoming More Ruthless

guest · Nov 22, 2020

Threat Statistics Are Scary
November 19, 2020
https://www.dataprivacyandsecurityinsider.com/2020/11/threat-statistics-are-scary/

The threat-related statistics of malware and ransomware are mind-boggling. We have regularly reported on the dramatic increase of ransomware, but the statistics on successful exploitation and botnet activities are just as bad.

According to Nuspire’s Q3 Threat Landscape Report (www.nuspire.com), based upon its experience over the last three months, there was an increase of 128.21 percent in malware events since Q2. Even more shocking is that the summary of findings shows that there were 3,646,448 malware events, 30,480,289 exploitation events, and 1,519,869 botnet events.

Just to put that in perspective, there were 1,168 unique malware variants detected, 43,410 malware variants were detected per day, and 303,870 malware variants were detected per week.
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According to the Report, “The largest contribution to increased activity was Visual Basic for Applications based documents….VBA Agents are a generic type of trojan that utilize Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. These are often deployed in malspam campaigns and include common lures such as legal documents, invoices or may be themed after prominent media events.”

The statistics are scary and are getting worse. Malware protection and prevention all come down to the same thing: user awareness. One user can click on one malicious phishing email and all safety protocols can be compromised.

Users have to understand the increased risk they pose to the company and companies have to provide their users with tools so they don’t become a victim.
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Nuspire: Security Experts Discover Threat Actors Becoming More Ruthless with the Resurgence of Emotet

Latest Nuspire Threat Report examines the most current cybercriminal tactics with insight from threat intelligence partner, Recorded Future
COMMERCE, MI. (November 12, 2020) – Nuspire, a leading managed security services provider (MSSP), today announced the release of its Q3 2020 Quarterly Threat Landscape Report, outlining new cybercriminal activity and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) with additional insight from its threat intelligence partner, Recorded Future.

The Q3 2020 Threat Landscape Report demonstrates threat actors becoming even more ruthless. Throughout Q3, hackers shifted focus from home networks to overburdened public entities, including the education sector and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Malware campaigns, like Emotet, utilized these events as phishing lure themes to assist in delivery.

“We continue to see attackers use newsjacking and typosquatting techniques to attack organizations with ransomware, especially this quarter with the Presidential election and schools moving to a virtual learning model,” said John Ayers, Nuspire Chief Strategy Product Officer.
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Additional notable findings from Nuspire’s Q3 2020 Threat Landscape Report include:
● The ZeroAccess botnet made another big appearance in Q3. It resurged in Q2, coming in second for most used botnet, but then went quiet towards the end of Q2, coming back up in Q3.
● Office document phishing skyrocketed during the second half of Q3, which could be due to the upcoming election, or because attackers have just finished retooling.
● Ransomware attack on the automotive industry is on the rise. At the end of Q3 2020, references have already surpassed the 2019 total at 18,307, an increase of 79.15% with Q4 still remaining.
● H-Worm Botnet, also known as Houdini, Dunihi, njRAT, NJw0rm, Wshrat, and Kognito, surged to the top of Nuspire’s witnessed Botnet traffic for Q3 from the actors behind the botnet by deploying instances of Remote Access Trojans (RATs) using COVID-19 phishing lures and executable names.
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