Blueliv today released its Annual Cyber Threat Report, compiling actionable intelligence from Threat Compass with expert insight from its analyst team.

The report found that malware variants previously focused on the financial sector are now successfully attacking non-banking targets too, concluding that a higher level of collaboration and intelligence-sharing between industries is ever-more crucial in the fight against cybercrime.

As the ‘public profile’ of cybercrime continues to increase, enterprises are encouraged to look at how they keep their businesses and customers safe by sharing intelligence, best practice and defense measures.

Strengthening security posture

Trends identified in the report included:

Attacks are discriminating much less by sector than in previous years. Any company holding PII is a target

Corporate intrusion in one industry will have a positive effect on other industries in terms of strengthening security posture

GDPR will mark a fundamental shift for organisations, but also for the bad guys: even the threat of a reported data breach will become increasingly lucrative

AI-powered attacks are increasing in scope and complexity, reflecting advances in AI-powered cyberdefense

Self-spreading ransomware which grabbed the headlines in 2017 will be overtaken by cryptojacking attacks.

Malware sophistication

Ramon Vicens, CTO at Blueliv, commented: “When cyber attacks in one industry make headlines, organisations in other industries start to take notice.

“When other organisations take notice and start taking proactive steps to strengthen their security posture, that is good news for all of us: the fight against cybercrime is a collaborative effort.”

Other key findings included an overview of increased malware sophistication, with improved complexity, encryption, obfuscation and lateral movement techniques used by adversaries.

Written from press release by Leah Alger