Report: AI-driven cyber threats increase in critical sectors
Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 has released worrying statistics pointing to a sharp increase in exposures in the insurance, pharmaceutical and manufacturing sectors.
A new report from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 has revealed a growing AI threat, as cybercriminals increasingly leverage the technology to fuel their attacks.
He 2024 Unit 42 Attack Surface Threat ReportReleased today (August 15), it leveraged “several petabytes of data collected throughout 2023” to create a picture of the modern attack surface and the changing nature of threats facing many enterprises.
Unit 42 called the pace of evolution “relentless,” particularly in terms of AI-powered abilities.
“Attackers are moving faster and more aggressively, leveraging AI to exploit even the smallest gaps in an organization’s defense. “Our report makes clear that central oversight is essential to addressing today’s increasingly complex exposure landscape, which is why organizations and governments are turning to attack surface management practices to meet this need,” Steve Manley , regional vice president for Australia and New Zealand at Palo. Alto Networks said in a statement.
“We saw the importance of this recently, with the Australian Government’s directives for all government agencies to adopt ASM policies, to gain full visibility into their attack surface and reduce security risks. By maintaining continuous visibility into their Internet-facing infrastructure, organizations can take a proactive approach to effectively manage and protect their attack surface.”
The report found that, on average, companies are scaling their attack services by more than 300 services per month, which, in turn, accounts for nearly 32 percent of serious cloud incidents and exposures.
That number may seem high, but it is not the highest; The media and entertainment industry introduces, on average, more than 7,000 new services each month, while telecommunications, insurance, pharmaceuticals and life sciences are adding more than 1,000 each month on average.
The financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing sectors add more than 200 new services monthly.
Expanding the attack surface also aids lateral movement of threat actors and exposes more data for exfiltration. Seventy-three percent of exposures occur within IT and networking infrastructure, business operations applications, and remote access services.
Twenty-five percent of those exposures occur within IT and networking infrastructure, while 23 percent occur within remote access services and business applications.
You can read the full report here.
