‘Half of the most common exploits are related to IoT’.

Half of the twelve most common exploits worldwide are related to IoT equipment. That’s what Fortinet’s Global Threat Landscape Report says. It also appears that four of the twelve main exploits are related to IP cameras.

When cybercriminals gain access to such IoT devices, they can use them for espionage, to perform malicious activities on location, or to access digital systems for performing DDoS or ransomware attacks.

The number of exploits has also reached a record level. According to the Fortninet Threat Landscape Index, the number of exploits per company increased by 10 percent and the number of unique exploits detected grew by 5 percent. However, the number of exploits decreased in the second half of the quarter.

Open source

In addition, open source tools are being abused for cyber attacks. Security guards use open source malware tools to test security mechanisms and investigate exploits, among other things. But the tools are accessible to everyone, so hackers can also use them. They use the tools as digital weapons and often use them to carry out ransomware attacks.

Thanks to new developments in the field of stenography, an old type of attack is being relaunched. Stenography is usually not used for the most common cyber threats, except for Vawtrak. Last quarter, Vawtrak was awarded the list of fastest growing botnets. It also observed malware that used stenography to hide malicious code in memes on social media.

In addition, malware is still distributed in the form of adware. Adware is still the most common infection in most regions. In Europe, malware accounted for over a quarter of all infections.

Security

Fortinet itself states that last quarter’s data confirms that organizations need to transform their security to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals. “They need a security fabric that spans the entire network environment, from IoT endpoints to multi-cloud environments, and integrates every security component,” says the company.

According to Fortinet, the approach offers organisations the opportunity to quickly exchange, on a large scale, practically deployable threat information, to shorten detection times and to take automated countermeasures.