South Africa is often first in line for newly emerging advanced attacks. Indeed, emerging economies such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and SA are viewed as soft, and lucrative, targets by organised crime syndicates with highly advanced cyber capabilities.
This is according to Nithen Naidoo, CIO and co-founder at Snode, who will be presenting on 'Stranger than fiction' at the ITWeb Security Summit 2018, to be held from 21 to 25 May, at Vodacom World, in Midrand.
He says the fact that these economies have not made the same kind of security investments as their developed nation counterparts make them a highly attractive target for attackers. "To confirm this, you only need to look at the list of countries being targeted by the wave of SWIFT attacks that plagued the banking sector."
Sharing intelligence
Speaking of where South African businesses are going wrong when it comes to cyber security, Naidoo says businesses need to share their threat intelligence and disclose when and how they are being attacked. "It's worth noting, though, that these issues are not specific to SA, but plague our customers globally."
He adds that one of Snode's advantages, is that it automatically and anonymously shares analytics and insights gleaned from existing attacks, while learning the patterns behind criminals' attempts to attack customers' network. "In this way, the more customers using an augmented intelligence solution, the stronger it becomes as a line of defence."
Stranger things
When asked about some of the stranger things he has seen in cyber security recently, Naidoo said: "We've seen an increase in machine-to-machine malware and attack vectors, especially targeting industrial control systems (ICS) and Internet of Things (IoT) environments. Most notable was a recent discovery of cryptojacking in these environments."
Cryptojacking is where a hacker hijacks a target's processing power in order to mine cryptocurrency on the hacker's behalf.
Another interesting finding is the increasing trend of clients being affected by an old "commercial-grade" Trojan called FinSpy, which was widely reported in 2013. "The malware is not necessarily new but the attack vectors to deliver the malware are new and quite advanced. This is similar to the Terdot malware, which delivered the old Zeus Trojan."
Delegates attending Naidoo's talk will learn about the emerging threats we see in Snode's SA client environments, as well as the key issues affecting the majority of its South African clients. He will also discuss the defence strategies clients have used that best address these issues.
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