Cybercriminals manipulate more and more and make defense more difficult

Cloud, networking and security solutions provider VMware recently released its latest "Global Incident Response Threat" report. This shows how cybercriminals are manipulating reality to create a new dimension to the threat landscape. That is, attacks are being carried out with increasingly advanced technology and are becoming more destructive. For example, business communications are increasingly being compromised, timing information is being manipulated, and overall digital reality is being distorted. With the shift to the home office, 32 percent of respondents in the report experienced attackers using corporate communications platforms to navigate the corporate environment and develop sophisticated attack patterns.

Attacks on the cloud are also on the rise

What's particularly troubling is that cybercriminals are not simply lone perpetrators. "Today, we are seeing increasing interconnectedness between nation-states and cybercriminals, leading to increasingly sophisticated and destructive cyberattacks - and COVID-19 is adding to that," said Tom Kellermann, Head of Cybersecurity Strategy at VMware. For example, in 64 percent of ransomware attack cases, cooperation between different ransomware groups could be detected. Following the rush to the cloud in the wake of the pandemic, cybercriminals are also increasingly trying to exploit these environments. Nearly half (43 percent) of respondents reported that more than a third of attacks target cloud workloads, with nearly a quarter (22 percent) reporting more than half. For this reason, 6 in 10 respondents believe that implementing cloud security tools is a top priority. "The digital and physical worlds are merging more and more, so really anything can be manipulated by savvy hackers. In reality, cybercriminals on the dark web or in intelligence agencies are often the ones who use cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning first," warns Kellermann.

Cybercriminals push defenders to their limits

This situation is increasingly pushing defenses to their limits. To be sure, defenses against cyberattacks are expanding, with 81 percent of respondents saying they plan to focus on an active defense strategy in the next 12 months. But the "Global Incident Response Threat" report also finds that defenders are struggling with mental health issues and increased expectations of their work. Fifty-one percent have experienced extreme stress or burnout in the past year, it says. "Burnout is a big problem for incident response teams who have to handle immense spikes in requests in a largely remote environment," says Rick McElroy, principal cybersecurity strategist at VMware. "This further underscores the importance of building resilient teams for leaders, whether through work rotation, additional vacation days to bolster mental health, or other initiatives to strengthen personal development."

Source: VMware