Book Image

Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies - Second Edition

By : Tim Rains
3 (2)
Book Image

Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies - Second Edition

3 (2)
By: Tim Rains

Overview of this book

Tim Rains is Microsoft's former Global Chief Security Advisor and Amazon Web Services’ former Global Security Leader for Worldwide Public Sector. He has spent the last two decades advising private and public sector organizations all over the world on cybersecurity strategies. Cybersecurity Threats, Malware Trends, and Strategies, Second Edition builds upon the success of the first edition that has helped so many aspiring CISOs, and cybersecurity professionals understand and develop effective data-driven cybersecurity strategies for their organizations. In this edition, you’ll examine long-term trends in vulnerability disclosures and exploitation, regional differences in malware infections and the socio-economic factors that underpin them, and how ransomware evolved from an obscure threat to the most feared threat in cybersecurity. You’ll also gain valuable insights into the roles that governments play in cybersecurity, including their role as threat actors, and how to mitigate government access to data. The book concludes with a deep dive into modern approaches to cybersecurity using the cloud. By the end of this book, you will have a better understanding of the threat landscape, how to recognize good Cyber Threat Intelligence, and how to measure the effectiveness of your organization's cybersecurity strategy.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
13
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14
Index

Chapter summary

This chapter focused on internet-based threats. We examined phishing attacks, drive-by download attacks, and malware distribution sites. So many attacks leverage social engineering that CISOs and security teams must spend time and resources to mitigate it. For example, every week, tens of thousands of new phishing sites are connected to the internet, and every month, billions of phishing emails are sent to prospective victims.

Most phishing emails include a link to a phishing site (Microsoft Corporation, 2018) and most phishing sites leverage HTTPS (TLS certificates) (APWG, September 22, 2021). Accounts are nearly 100% less likely to be compromised when MFA is enabled (Weinert, 2019). Anti-social engineering training for Information Workers can also be an effective mitigation.

Drive-by download attacks leverage unpatched vulnerabilities to install malware unbeknownst to the user. The number of drive-by URLs has been dramatically reduced from the peak in 2013. According...