Trustwave has released its 2016 Global Security Report which delves into the latest trends in cybercrime, data breaches and security threats of the last year.
Of particular note, the report revealed that card payment details were the data most sought after by hackers in 2015, the driving force behind 60% of the attacks the firm investigated. In terms of prime targets, retail was the most compromised industry, followed by the hospitality sector, and the food and beverage market.
Further, Trustwave unearthed weaknesses in application security with almost all (97%) of the applications it tested having at least one vulnerability – 10% of these were considered to be critical or high risk.
"Cyber-criminals have been congregating and organizing for years, but 2015 showed a marked increase in the behavior we would normally associate with legitimate businesses," said Trustwave Chief Executive Officer and President Robert J. McCullen. "Based on the study of numerous security incidents, exploit kits and malvertising campaigns, our 2016 Trustwave Global Security Report shows businesses how and where these sophisticated criminal organizations are most likely to attack, and more importantly, how to defend their assets."
Perhaps most poignantly, the research revealed Angler to be the most prevalent exploit kit of 2015, accounting for 40% of exploit kit-related incidents observed. This was more than double than Nuclear, which was the second most prevalent. Angler was also the first exploit kit to integrate several newly disclosed exploits, including four zero-day exploits and seven “one-day” exploits, which target vulnerabilities for which patches have been released, but have not yet been widely distributed.
In a statement to Infosecurity, Panda Security technical director Luis Corrons explained that exploit kits are now a common tool used by hackers that are continually changing and becoming more complex.
“As security professionals learn how to fight against this kind of threats, they evolve, mainly trying to figure out ways to stay undetected,” he said
“As simple as it sounds, an update policy in place can solve almost all the problems due to infections from exploit kits. Of course when you have several hundreds/thousands of computers, the world "simple" might be not accurate. In that case you need a solution that shows you which computers are actually executing vulnerable versions of software (Java, Flash, browsers, etc.) so you can act and be protected beforehand,” Corrons added.