Woburn, MA – November 15, 2017 – Kaspersky Lab today announced its targeted threat predictions for 2018, which are prepared annually by the company’s expert Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), drawing on the research and experience gained over the course of the year. For 2018, Kaspersky Lab has complemented its targeted threat predictions with a series of industry and technology threat predictions.
According to the predictions, in the coming year, the world will see more legitimate software being poisoned by groups targeting wider victim profiles and geographies, with the added advantage that such attacks are extremely hard to spot and mitigate. Other hard-to-block attacks, such as those involving high-end mobile malware, are also set to rise as attackers resort to new tricks to breach increasingly well-protected targets.
In 2017, supply chain attacks such as Shadowpad and ExPetya demonstrated how easily third party software could be used to gain entry into enterprises. This threat is expected to increase in 2018 as some of the world’s most dangerous threat actors start adopting the approach as an alternative to watering hole techniques -- or because previous attempts to break in have failed.
“Supply chain attacks have proven to be as much of a nightmare as we had previously theorized. As advanced threat actors continue to gain access to vulnerable development companies, back-dooring of popular or regionally-popular software will become an increasingly desirable attack vector,” said Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade, principal security researcher, Global Research and Analysis Team. “Supply chain attacks will allow attackers to successfully gain access to multiple enterprises in target sectors while flying under the radar of system administrators and security solutions alike.”
Other targeted threat predictions for 2018 include:
Alongside these advanced threat predictions, Kaspersky Lab’s industry and technology threat predictions aim to help some of the most connected sectors understand and prepare for the security challenges they could face over the next year. These predictions for 2018 include:
The full Kaspersky Lab Threat Predictions for 2018 are available on Securelist.
To look back at what Kaspersky Lab experts expected to see for advanced targeted threats in 2017, please read last year’s predictions.
About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is a global cybersecurity company celebrating its 20 year anniversary in 2017. Kaspersky Lab’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into next generation security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky Lab technologies and we help 270,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
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