Attackers continue to improve their tactics and tools, demonstrating growing sophistication, including the creation of one-off web addresses to foil blocklists, a jump in ransomware infections, a focus on reconnaissance and credential harvesting, and an uptick in targeting connected devices, according to Microsoft's annual "Digital Defense Report," published on Sept. 29.
The report, which replaces Microsoft's annual "Security Intelligence Report," uses data from Microsoft's vast reach, encompassing more than 1.2 billion PCs, servers, and connected devices; 1.8 petabytes of cloud and network logs; and more than a billion users of applications and services. The company found that attackers have moved further away from malware-based attacks and toward phishing, credential stuffing, and business email compromise with more refined attacks. In addition, attackers are increasingly moving downstream to infect third parties and exploiting the trust between companies — and developers use of open source components — as a weakness.
The increase in sophistication prompted Microsoft to create a list of defensive technologies and processes that can help companies harden their business against such attacks. Patching software, adopting multifactor authentication, limiting privileges on systems, enforcing network segmentation, and ensuring good email hygiene are the defenses that can help prevent attackers from causing damage, Tom Burt, corporate vice president of customer security and trust for Microsoft, wrote in a blog post today.
"Given the leap in attack sophistication in the past year, it is more important than ever that we take steps to establish new rules of the road for cyberspace," Burt wrote. "[T]hat all organizations, whether government agencies or businesses, invest in peop ..
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