Fortinet Shares the Global Threat Landscape Report

Fortinet has recently announced the findings of the latest FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report.

• The research of Fortinet from Q4 2019 not only shows that cybercriminals continue to attempt to exploit any possible opportunity throughout the digital infrastructure, but that they are maximizing global economic and political realities to further enable their goals.
• Global trends demonstrate that the prevalence and detection of threats may differ by geography, but the sophistication and automation of attacks remain consistent everywhere. In addition, the need to prioritize cybersecurity hygiene remains urgent around the world as threats are scaling faster than ever before.

Highlights of the reports are:

1) A Not So Charming Kitten: Research shows significant levels of activity across regions associated with Charming Kitten, an Iran-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group in Q4. Active since around 2014, the threat actor has been associated with numerous cyber espionage campaigns. Recent activity suggests that the threat actor has expanded into the election disruption business, having been linked to a series of attacks on targeted email accounts associated with a presidential election campaign. In addition, Charming Kitten was observed employing four new tactics against intended victims that were all designed to trick victims into parting with sensitive information.

2) Security Risks for IoT Devices Magnify: IoT devices continue to be challenged with exploitable software and these threats can affect unexpected devices such as wireless IP cameras. This situation is magnified when components and software are embedded into different commercial devices sold under a variety of brand names, sometimes by different vendors. Many of these components and services are often programmed using bits and pieces of pre-written code from a variety of common sources.

3) Senior Threats Help Junior Threats: Amidst the constant pressure to keep ahead of new threats, organizations sometimes forget that older exploits and vulnerabilities really have no expiration date, and threat actors will continue to use them as long as they work. A case in point is EternalBlue. The malware has been adapted over time to exploit common and major vulnerabilities.

4) Trends Demonstrate a New Perspective on Global Spam Trade: Spam continues to be one of the top issues for organizations and individuals to deal with. This quarter’s report combines the volume of spam flow between nations with data showing the ratios of spam sent vs. spam received, visually revealing a new perspective on an old problem. The majority of spam volume seems to follow economic and political trends.

5) Tracking the Tracks of Cybercriminals to See What is Next: Looking at IPS triggers detected in a region not only shows what resources are being targeted, but may also indicate what cybercriminals might focus on in the future, either because enough of those attacks were ultimately successful, or simply because there is more of a certain type of technology deployed in some regions.

Michael Joseph, Director System Engineering, India & SAARC, Fortinet, said “In the cyber arms race, the criminal community has often had a distinct advantage due to the growing cyberskills gap, the expanding digital attack surface, and by leveraging the element of surprise with tactics such as social engineering to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals. To get out ahead of the cycle of increasingly sophisticated and automated threats, organizations need to use the same sorts of technologies and strategies to defend their networks that criminals are using to attack them. That means adopting integrated platforms that leverage the power and resources of AI-driven threat intelligence and playbooks to enable protection and visibility across the digital infrastructure.”

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