Cisco Security Report 2017: The risk for enterprises is increasing

The Cisco Annual Security Report, which has been released for the seventh time, describes the key cybersecurity tendencies and provides recommendations on how organizations can better protect their systems, applications, and networks.


New possibilities for attackers


According to this, organized gangs are now dominated by cybercriminals. They are financially well-equipped, use intelligent technologies and can cause major damage - both economically and for the good reputation of companies and authorities. Current attack methods remain: theft of passwords and access codes via social engineering, unintentional introduction of malicious software and exploitation of the trust required for online banking, e-government or social media.


Other results


In addition, the rapid growth of smart mobile devices and cloud computing leads to more complex structures with a larger attack area. These new device classes and infrastructure architectures open up new possibilities for exploiting unknown vulnerabilities and insufficiently protected access points to attackers.


Outsourcing with thin client workstations


Cybercriminals now use Internet infrastructures more often than individual computers or devices. The access to strategically important webhosting servers, name servers or data centers allows the reading of a large amount of individual data.


By 2017, a million security experts will be missing. These would be necessary to enable companies to detect ubiquitous attacks and to introduce effective safeguards in good time.


The Cisco 2017 Annual Security Report has also found


Vulnerabilities and threats have reached the highest level since the first measurements in May 2000. In October 2013, the total number of the largest multinational corporations increased by 14 percent. In October, Cisco announced that their networks are generating traffic to web sites hosting malware, while 96 percent reported data To infected servers, and 92% to sites with no content, which mostly contain malware. "The number and vulnerability of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks has increased significantly. Some of them are used to distract other harmful activities such as performance fraud, for example, by accessing computing capacity at the expense of the user. The most common web-based malware was 27 percent multipurpose trojan. 23 percent of vulnerable scripts (such as iframes) and 22 percent of Trojans are exposed to data theft, and Java remains the most widely used programming language, with 91 percent of IOCs (Indicators of Compromise) Percentage of all mobile malicious programs were tailored to Android devices, with 43.8 percent dominated by Andr / Qdplugin-A, disguised as a (modified) copy of a legitimate app distributed by unofficial marketplaces And electronics manufacturers. But even so far spared sectors such as agriculture and mining have become increasingly important. The attacks on the energy industry also increased.