I have been working in cybersecurity for a long time, since 1987, over 35 years. And, surprisingly to many readers/observers, I often say I have not seen anything new in the hacker/malware space since I began. The same threats that were a problem then are the same problems now. Social engineering and unpatched software (and firmware) have long been the two biggest initial root causes for hacking…for decades.

For the first time, analysis of ransomware payments made in a single year tops $1,000,000,000. This signals a massive return to more frequent, sophisticated, and successful attacks. Each year, blockchain analysis company, Chainalysis, reports on ransomware payments based on the payments made to digital wallets known to belong to cybercriminals and cybercriminal gangs.

Emails are still the most common delivery method for malicious files, according to Check Point’s Cyber Security Report for 2024. “Email-based attacks continue to be the dominant initial infection vector,” the report says.

Attacks targeting Swiss residents increased 10% last year, according to newly-released data that shows a growth in not just phishing attacks, but brand impersonation at purely a national level. The Swiss Federation’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) hosts a phishing site reporting tool where individuals and businesses can report suspicious websites and emails. They analyze and track reports, consolidating their findings annually into their Anti-Phishing Report.

Venturebeat had the scoop on a fresh Group-IB report. They discovered the first banking trojan that steals people’s faces. Unsuspecting users are tricked into giving up personal IDs and phone numbers and are prompted to perform face scans. These images are then swapped out with AI-generated deepfakes that can easily bypass security checkpoints.

A single account being phished caused millions of French healthcare policyholder records to be breached. I’ve said it before… it only takes one phish. And in the case of French payment processor, Malakoff Humanis, a single click enabled a cyber attack was the catalyst for a data breach that occurred earlier this month, according to their post on LinkedIn (press See Translation for a localized version of the post).

Thirty percent of all cyber incidents in 2023 involved abuse of valid credentials, according to IBM X-Force’s latest Threat Intelligence Index. This represents a seventy-one percent increase compared to 2022. “One of the top initial access vectors in 2023—jumping from third to first place— was the abuse of valid accounts identified in 30% of the observed incidents X-Force responded to,” the researchers write.

Researchers at VIPRE Security observed a 276% increase in malware delivered by phishing between Q1 and Q4 of 2023. “Last year, our YARA rules caught between one and two million generic malware instances each quarter, with a nearly 20% jump in Q4,” VIPRE’s report says.

I recently read an article about a bright, sophisticated woman who fell victim to an unbelievable scam. By unbelievable, I mean most people reading or hearing about it could not believe it was successful. A group posing as an Amazon employee and various U.S. law enforcement agencies were able to convince a woman to take $50,000 out of her bank account in cash and hand it off to a complete stranger in the streets. It is a wild story and most of us would not be tricked into doing what happened to her.