Think of one thing at work that you wish you didn’t have to do today.
Is it something that requires a lot of concentration, but when you’re done you feel like it was a waste of time? Do you feel like a machine could probably do the work a heck of a lot easier than you having to invest an hour or several hours?
If we could get that task or set of tasks automated would that make life easier?
These are things criminals have been thinking about over the last few years and have actually been addressing.
Application attacks are now one of the biggest ways criminals are breaching networks—across industries.
These application attacks are completely automated.
Attack automation, termed “spray and pray” techniques have been out in cyber space for several years.
Cybersecurity experts have been identifying more and more automated attacks over the last year and have come to see automation as one of the biggest tools to make attacks more effective. The fact of the matter is the automation used in current attacks makes it so a criminal can pretty much click an “easy” button and an attack starts to scan, search and penetrate networks.
New changes with this attack type?
An increase in the volume of attacks. Plain and simple, as hackers and cybercriminals began automating their processes the amount of businesses attacked AND penetrated went way up.
I’m sure that isn’t too surprising. Going back to that task that you hate doing—the one that you wouldn’t mind automating to make your day a little easier. Those are exactly the tasks that criminals have identified as not worth putting in the effort.
The bottlenecks of their processes or the least effective steps in their attack strategy. The areas where human error actually keeps them from making more money and either ransoming, breaching or stealing from companies.
What’s different with this attack strategy?
These attacks don’t discriminate. While a good chunk of cybercrime is focused exclusively on healthcare because medical records are one of the most valuable pieces of information bought and sold on the Dark Web, attackers using some of the recent automation tactics are not discriminating who they are attacking as much. Rather, they are much more interested in expanding their target net to such sizes that they’ll assuredly make big pay days with much less effort per targeted network.
Where do experts see new “innovations” in automation taking cybercrime?
Increased access and greater variety of hacking tools has made smaller organizations that once flew under the radar no longer safe.
You see, with greater use of cloud-based resources and more systems and applications that are accessible via the internet, cybercriminals have identified all businesses using cloud-based technology as good targets. Criminals are focusing more on cloud as a way to get into networks that are becoming more accessible by means of all sorts of online applications.
How can you make sure your network is secure?
The best way to avoid automated attacks is to take basic security hygiene at heart. If you are a Dynamic Edge client, rest-assured a lot of your bases are covered. If you are using fitSecure, you are in a better spot (if you haven’t thought about moving to fitSecure, ask your BTM to set up a conversation).
