As cloud technologies are adopted and embraced by more and more organisations, and their functionality evolves at a rapid pace, the digital territory of companies using them is becoming complex and harder to defend.
For all its benefits and robust security measures, an ever-growing number of devices, apps, cloud services, networks and servers make companies vulnerable. Paired with increasingly sophisticated hacker techniques, security must be a number one priority for all companies; and it’s little wonder security is a key concern of CTOs and keeps them awake at night.
SonicWall has released their 2020 Cyber Threat Report which contains key insights, stats and threat intelligence from 2019, to help you keep ahead of cybercriminals and keep your IT environment secure. Here are the key trends they identified to help you inform your security strategy in 2020.
Malware is down, but more targeted
SonicWall logged 9.9 billion malware attacks in 2019, which was down 6% from 2018, when a record breaking 10.52 billion malware attacks were logged. While on the surface this looks like good news, the recorded attacks were more targeted and evasive.
New target for ransomware attacks
Ransomware is being used to target organisations that are likely to pay because of the sensitive information they hold.
187.9 million ransomware attacks were intercepted by SonicWall in 2019, and many of these were against government organisations both at regional and national level.
The problem of file-less malware
File-less malware is very resistant to forensic strategies because it exists as a memory-based artefact and doesn’t write any of its malicious activity to the computer’s hard drive.
In September 2019, SonicWall recorded 570,000 file-less malware attacks; the highest monthly volume for the whole of 2019.
Encrypted threats continue to rise
Cybercriminals mask their attacks from inspection by traditional security controls by using TLS/SSL encryption. SonicWall threat researchers recorded a year on year increase of 27.3% of malware sent over TSL/SSL traffic.
Rising attacks on Internet of Things
There was a 5% increase in IOT malware attacks in 2019, with the total volume recorded by SonicWall reaching 34.3 million. This is in part due to an ever-increasing number of IOT devices connecting every day, but attacks should be expected and planned for.
Cryptojacking is on the decline
Cryptojacking hits dropped 78% during the second half of 2019 following Coinhive shutting down as a result of the untenable situation between Coinhive-based cryptojacking malware and the legitimate Coinhive mining service.
See the key security stats at a glance by downloading the full SonicWall Cyber Threat Report 2020 here.
