Computer Security – IBM 2016 research report highlights numerous weaknesses
Uncategorized March 31st, 2017This study of 2016 developments from IBM affirm that a weak state of security and privacy exists for both home and corporate users
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/51946.wss
IBM says cybercriminals are starting to grab unstructured data, spam has rebloomed 400% and ransomware has just gone crazy. The state of online security is dreadful. At least if you look at the results from the IBM Security’s 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index released today which contains myriad depressing nuggets such as:
*** The number of records compromised grew a historic 566% in 2016 from 600 million to more than 4 billion — more than the combined total from the two previous years.
*** In one case, a single source leaked more than 1.5 billion records [see Yahoo breach].
*** In the first three months of 2016, the FBI estimated cybercriminals were paid a reported $209 million via ransomware. This would put criminals on pace to make nearly $1 billion from their use of the malware just last year.
*** In 2016, many significant breaches related to unstructured data such as email archives, business documents, intellectual property and source code were also compromised.
*** The most popular types of malcode we observed in 2016 were Android malware, banking Trojans, ransomware offerings and DDoS-as-a-service vendors. Since DDoS tools are mostly sold as a service and not as malware per se, we will focus here on banking Trojans, Android malware and ransomware.
*** In 2015, Healthcare was the most attacked industry with Financial Services falling to third, however, attackers in 2016 refocused back on Financial Services.