Book Image

Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies

By : Tim Rains
Book Image

Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies

By: Tim Rains

Overview of this book

After scrutinizing numerous cybersecurity strategies, Microsoft’s former Global Chief Security Advisor in this book helps you understand the efficacy of popular cybersecurity strategies and more. Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies offers an unprecedented long-term view of the global threat landscape by examining the twenty-year trend in vulnerability disclosures and exploitation, nearly a decade of regional differences in malware infections, the socio-economic factors that underpin them, and how global malware has evolved. This will give you further perspectives into malware protection for your organization. It also examines internet-based threats that CISOs should be aware of. The book will provide you with an evaluation of the various cybersecurity strategies that have ultimately failed over the past twenty years, along with one or two that have actually worked. It will help executives and security and compliance professionals understand how cloud computing is a game changer for them. By the end of this book, you will know how to measure the effectiveness of your organization’s cybersecurity strategy and the efficacy of the vendors you employ to help you protect your organization and yourself.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)
9
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10
Index

Post compromise – botnets and DDoS attacks

Once systems have been initially compromised via one of the cybersecurity usual suspects, like unpatched vulnerabilities and/or social engineering as we discussed in this chapter, any information of value is siphoned from victims' systems to be sold or traded. At this point, attackers have full control of the systems they have compromised. Many times, victims' systems are enlisted into botnets and used to perform whatever illicit projects their operators desire, including DDoS attacks.

There's a lot that can be written about botnets, how they operate, and the projects they are typically employed on. In fact, entire books have been dedicated to botnets. I won't try to duplicate those here. But I do want to briefly mention a few things on this topic.

It goes without saying that botnets have garnered a lot of attention over the years. When I worked at Microsoft, the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) worked...