New research published in the NTT 2016 Global Threat Intelligence Report reveals that cybercriminals have shifted their focus from traditional financial markets, to targeting the retail sector. Retail organizations experienced nearly three times as many cyberattacks as those in the finance sector which was top of the list of cyberattacks on organizations in the 2015 report. Cyberattacks on financial industry dropped significantly to fourteenth position.
NTT’s annual Global Threat Intelligence Report contains security threats gathered during 2015 from 8,000 clients of NTT Group security companies including Dimension Data, Solutionary, NTT Com Security, NTT R&D, and NTT Innovation Institute (NTTi3). This year’s data is based on 3.5 trillion security logs and 6.2 billion attacks. Data is also gathered from 24 Security Operations Centres and seven research and development centres of the NTT Group.
The retail sector topped the list of all cybersecurity attacks on all sectors at just under 11 percent in this year’s report.
Other highlights in the NTT 2016 Global Threat Intelligence Report include:
- 65 percent of attacks originated from IP addresses within the US. However, the hackers behind these attacks could be located anywhere in the world. Cybercriminals are adopting low-cost, highly available, and geographically strategic infrastructure to perpetrate malicious activities.
- Cybercriminals are increasingly leveraging malware to breach the perimeter defences of organizations. In 2015 there was an 18 percent increase in malware across all industries, excluding the education sector.
- The frequency and complexity of malware is becoming more stealthy and sophisticated: while organizations are developing sandboxes to better understand cybercriminal’s tactics to protect themselves from attacks, at the same time, malware developers are aggressively developing anti-sandbox techniques.
- Analysis of honeynet attacks in organizations reveals that attackers are making use of telcos and hosting providers to conduct their operations.
Visit www.dimensiondata.com/globalthreatreport to download the Executive Guide to the 2016 NTT Global Threat Intelligence Report.
