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

What is an Intrusion Kill Chain?

An Intrusion Kill Chain is the stages or phases that can be used in attacks by attackers. The phases provided in Lockheed Martin's paper include:

  • Reconnaissance
  • Weaponization
  • Delivery
  • Exploitation
  • Installation
  • Command and Control (C2)
  • Actions on Objectives

Although you can probably tell from the name of each of these phases what they encompass, let me quickly summarize them for you. Note that this is based on my own interpretation of Lockheed Martin's paper, and other interpretations are possible.

Attackers select their target in the Reconnaissance phase (Eric M. Hutchins, Michael J. Cloppert, Rohan M. Amin, Ph.D.) Certainly, many attackers select targets opportunistically, many times by coincidence, as evidenced by all the commodity malware present on the internet.

Other attackers might spend time and effort researching who they should target based on their motivations...