Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report 2019 – Key Findings

Symantec’s 2019 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) provides an overview of the new threat landscape, including insights into global threat activity, cybercriminal trends and motivations for attackers.

While there is much to be learned from this comprehensive view into the threat landscape, the following points outline some of the key trends.

• Formjacking Is the New Get Rich Quick Scheme for Cyber Criminals. Almost 5000 (4818) websites were compromised by formjacking every month in 2018.
• Cryptojacking Down But Not Out. Symantec blocked four times as many cryptojacking events in 2018 compared to 2017, however activity trended down throughout the year.
• Ransomware Drops, But Still Challenges Organisations. Enterprise and mobile ransomware infections increased while endpoints saw a decline.
• Supply Chain and Living Off the Land Attacks Are the New Staple. Attackers are increasingly making use of tools already installed on targeted computers or are running simple scripts and shellcode directly in memory. Creating less new files on the hard disk means less chance of being detected by traditional security tools and therefore minimises the risk of an attack being blocked.
• Cloud Security Challenges Emerge on Multiple Fronts. 70 million records were stolen or leaked from poorly-configured S3 buckets in 2018
• IoT in the Crosshairs of Attacks. Routers and connected cameras are the most infected devices.