US$81 million stolen from a Bangladesh bank. 500 million Yahoo! accounts swiped. A DDoS attack that brought down much of the internet. 2016’s cyber-attack headlines proved more than ever that companies have a visibility problem – they cannot see what is happening beneath the surface of their own networks. Based on Darktrace’s observations, the following predictions demonstrate the need for a new method of cyber defence – an immune system approach, to keep up with the fast-evolving threats that await us in 2017. 1. Attackers Will Not Just Steal Data – They Will  Change  It Today’s most savvy attackers are moving away from pure data theft or website hacking, to attacks that have a more subtle target – data integrity. We’ve seen ex-students successfully hack college computers to modify their grades. In 2013, Syrian hackers tapped into the Associated Press’ Twitter account and broadcasted fake reports that President Obama had been injured in explosions at the White House. Within minutes the news caused a 150-point drop in the Dow Jones. In 2017, attackers will use their ability to hack information systems not to just make a quick buck, but to cause long-term, reputational damage to individuals or groups, by eroding trust in data itself. The scenario is worrying for industries that rely heavily on public confidence. A laboratory that cannot vouch for the fidelity of medical test results, or a bank that has had account balances tampered with, are examples of organisations at risk. Governments may also fall foul of such attacks, as critical data repositories are altered, and public distrust in national institutions rises. These ‘trust attacks’ are also expected to disrupt the financial markets. An example of this is falsifying market information to cause ill-informed investments. We have already glimpsed the potential of disrupted M&A activity through cyber-attacks – is it a coincidence that the recent disclosure of the Yahoo hack happened while Verizon was in the process of acquiring the company? These attacks even have the power to sway public opinion. Hillary Clinton’s election campaign suffered a blow when thousands of emails from her campaign were leaked. An even graver risk would not be simply leaked emails but manipulation to create a false impression that a candidate has done something illegal or dishonourable. 2. More Attacks and Latent Threats Will Come from Insiders Insiders are often the source of the most dangerous attacks. They are harder to detect, because they use legitimate user credentials. They can do maximum damage, because they have knowledge of and privileged access to information required for their jobs, and can hop between network segments. A disgruntled employee looking to do damage stands a good chance through a cyber-attack. But insider threats are not just staff with chips on their shoulders. Non-malicious insiders are just as much of a vulnerability as deliberate saboteurs. How many times have links been clicked before checking email addresses? Or security policy contravened to get a job done quicker, such as uploading confidential documents on less secure public file hosting services? We can no longer reasonably expect 100 percent of employees and network users to be impervious to cyber-threats that are getting more advanced – they won’t make the right decision, every time. Organisations need to combat this insider threat by gaining visibility into their internal systems, rather than trying to reinforce their network perimeter. We don’t expect our skin to protect us from viruses – so we shouldn’t expect a firewall to stop advanced cyber-threats which, in many cases, originate from the inside in the first place. Just in the past year, immune system defence techniques have caught a plethora of insider threats, including an employee deliberately exfiltrating a customer database a week before handing in his notice; a game developer sending source code to his home email address so that he could work remotely over the weekend; a system administrator uploading network information to their home broadband router – the list goes on. Due to the increasing sophistication of external hackers, we are going to have a harder time distinguishing between insiders and external attackers who have hijacked legitimate user credentials. 3. The Internet of Things Will Become the Internet of Vulnerabilities According to IDC, 8.6 billion connected things will be in use across APAC in 2020, with more than half of major new business processes incorporating some element of IoT. These smart devices are woefully insecure in many cases – offering a golden opportunity for hackers. 2016 has seen some of the most innovative corporate hacks involving connected things. In the breach of DNS service Dyn in October, malware spread rapidly across an unprecedented number of devices including webcams and digital video recorders. In Singapore and Germany, we saw smaller but similar incidents with StarHub and Deutsche Telekom. Many of this year’s IoT hacks have gone unreported – they include printers, air conditioners and even a coffee machine. These attacks used IoT devices as stepping stones, from which to jump to more interesting areas of the network. However, sometimes the target is the device itself. One of the most shocking threats that we saw was when the fingerprint scanner that controlled the entrance to a major manufacturing plant was compromised – attackers were caught in the process of changing biometric data with their own fingerprints to gain physical access. In another attack, the videoconferencing unit at a sports company was hacked, and audio files were being transferred back to an unknown server in another continent. Want to be a fly on the wall in a FTSE100 company’s boardroom? Try hacking the video camera. 4. Artificial Intelligence Will Go Dark Artificial intelligence is exciting for many reasons – self-driving cars, virtual assistants, better weather forecasting etc. But artificial intelligence will also be used by attackers to wield highly sophisticated and persistent attacks that blend into the noise of busy networks. We have already seen the first glimpses of these types of attack. Polymorphic malware, which changes its attributes mid-attack to evade detection, has reinforced the obsoleteness of signature-based detection methods. What is emerging is a next generation of attacks that use AI-powered, customised code to emulate the behaviours of specific users so accurately as to fool even skilled security personnel. In 2017, we can expect AI to be applied to all stages of a cyber-attacker’s mission. This includes the ability to craft sophisticated and bespoke phishing campaigns that will successfully dupe even the most threat-conscious employee. Next year’s attacker can see more than your social media profile – they know that your 10am meeting with your supplier is being held at their new headquarters. At 9:15am, as you get off the train, an email with the subject line ‘Directions to Our Office’ arrives in your inbox, apparently from the person that you are meeting. Now, do you click the map link in that email? Source: http://www.mis-asia.com/tech/security/four-evolved-cyber-threats-apac-organisations-must-pay-attention-to-in-2017/?page=3

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Four evolved cyber-threats APAC organisations must pay attention to in 2017