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Rogue countries and cyber criminal are increasingly working together to target an array of physical and cyber targets via cyber attacks, VMware’s annual Global Incident Response Threat Report illustrated.
The survey found that of those industry professionals who had confronted ransomware attacks over the last 12 months, 64 per cent responded that the attack was conducted by collaborating cyber crime groups.
The survey questioned 123 cyber security experts from around the world between May and June 2021.
Tom Kellermann, head of cybersecurity strategy at VMware, outlined that the collaborative approach to cyber crime has seen a large advance in the complexity of attacks.
“Today, we’re seeing a nexus between nation-states and cyber criminals continue to rapidly advance the development of increasingly sophisticated and destructive cyber attacks, combined with the broadening of the attack surface as a result of COVID-19,” Kellermann said.
“The digital and physical worlds have converged, and everything can be manipulated by modern-day attackers. The reality is that first adopters of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, are often cyber criminals on the dark web and in nation-states intelligence communities.”
The complexity of the attacks have been exacerbated by the aggressive characteristics of the malware, with more than 50 per cent of attacks being destructive/integrity attacks.
Rick McElroy, principal cybersecurity strategist at VMware, showed that these attacks had devastating impacts on staffing.
“Burnout is a huge issue with incident response teams, who are handling a spike in engagements in what is still a largely remote environment,” McElroy said.
“It only further underscores the need for leaders to build resilient teams, whether that means considering rotations of work, empowering individuals to take mental health days, or any number of other initiatives aimed at nurturing personal growth and development.”
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