[BreachExchange] 5 Reasons You Can't Ignore This New Rise in Cyber Crime

[Audrey McNeil]

http://www.inc.com/adam-levin/5-reasons-you-cant-ignore-this-new-rise-in-cyber-crime.html

When it comes to studies, surveys and reports sent my way that dissect
various nuances of the cyber wild, my cup runneth over.

So, I've assembled a small grouping of revelatory proof points that convey
the rising maliciousness made possible by the way we've chosen to live our
digital lives--and also highlight specific cyber exposures that concern me
greatly.

The worse is yet to come.

Some 72 percent of the security pros heading to the Black Hat USA
conference in Las Vegas later this summer believe it is likely that they
will have to respond to a major data breach in the next  12  months, and 25
 percent  said  it  is "highly likely," according to Black Hat's annual
attendee survey.

Small wonder. Risk Based Security tallied 3,930 incidents  for its 2015
Data  Breach QuickView. This accounts for  more  than  736  million
 records  stolen, surpassing the previous peak set in 2012. Clearly, the
bad guys are continuing to operate with near impunity while the good guys
continue their struggle to resolve a complex problem.

The damage runs deeper than you think.

It can take years, and cost multi-millions, for companies to recover from a
serious data breach. Deloitte's Beneath The Surface Of A Cyber Attack study
shows how 'hidden costs' represent 95 percent of the financial impact of a
breach.

The wider fall out--loss of intellectual property, disruption to core
operations, destruction of critical infrastructure--tends to play out over
a long period of time, making financial modeling difficult, says Emily
Mossburg of Deloitte & Touche's Cyber Risk Services. Company decision
makers need to broaden their damage estimating models and consider "peanut
butter spreading" of security spending to account for post-breach expenses.

Insidious insider attacks.

Network breaches that escalate due to an intruder leveraging a privileged
account remain all too common. Privileged accounts are the logons that give
administrative access to laptops, servers, printers--any device with a
microprocessor.

Some 22 percent of companies suffering a data breach reported compromised
or abused  credentials as the root cause, according to a poll of IT
security professionalsconducted by the  Cloud Security Alliance. Much work
needs to be done monitoring and controlling who can access sensitive
systems, says John Yeoh, a senior research analyst at CSA.

Targeting CEOS.

Meticulously crafting of a spoofed email intended to fool a targeted CEO
has become an art form. So-called spear phishing remains a primary way
cyber spies get a foothold in networks to probe deeper and pilfer
intellectual property. Meanwhile, some 22 percent of spear phishing attacks
intercepted by PhishLabs in 2015 were found to be motivated by financial
fraud.

One form uses a spoofed directive, purportedly sent by a senior exec, that
is crafted to compel a subordinate into executing  a large cash transfer
into an account controlled by the attacker. This is referred to as a
Business Email Compromise.  A surge of BEC attacks has resulted in scammers
stealing a stunning $750 million from more than 7,000 U.S. companies from
October 2013 through August 2015, according to the FBI.

Banks are under no legal obligation to make BEC attack victims whole.
"Don't expect your bank to be behind you," observes Eduard Goodman, Chief
Privacy Officer at my company, IDT911. "It's caveat emptor. Because this is
happening in a business setting, there is no protection ... you're out of
luck.""

Ransomware rampage.

The opening quarter of this year saw a 7 percent surge in registration of
websites set up exclusively to host ransomware campaigns, according the
Infoblox DNS Threat Index. Ransomware is cyber extortion. The attacker
encrypts the victim's data, and demands a payment to restore access.

Millions of consumers have been hit with incessant pitches from a bogus
antivirus scanning service to unlock their files. But now cyber
extortionists have shifted to "industrial-scale, big-money attacks on all
sizes and manner of organizations, including major enterprises," says Rod
Rasmussen, Vice President of Cybersecurity at Infoblox.

A new report issued this week (JULY 26) by Solutionary shows that the
healthcare industry accounted for 88 percent of ransomware detections in Q2
of this year. Education and financial institutions were also targeted.

It's all too clear the cyber wild will remain vibrant and dangerous for the
foreseeable future. Stay alert.
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