Cloud Customers Faced 681M Cyberattacks in 2018

Cloud customers were hit with 681 million cyberattacks last year, according to analysts at cloud security provider Armor, which recently analyzed cloud attacks detected in 2018.

The most common cloud-focused threats leveraged known software vulnerabilities, involved brute-force and/or stolen credentials, targeted the Internet of Things (IoT), or aimed for Web applications with SQL injection, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery attacks, or remote file inclusion. Researchers based the list on volume; these are not the most advanced or lethal cloud attacks.

Yet they continue to work, are easy to access, and are fairly simple to use, they explained in a blog post on their findings. Any cybercriminal can rent an exploit kit containing attack tools for a reasonable amount of cash. For example, they said, the older and established Disdain Exploit Kit was charging rental fees starting at $80 per day, $500 per week, and $1,400 per month. Kits are designed to be accessible to cybercriminals at all levels and are constantly updated with new exploits.

"Organizations that ignore patching leave themselves open to attacks that can take time and resources away from their business and can cause a lot of damage," said Corey Milligan, senior security researcher with Armor's Threat Resistance Unit (TRU).

TRU predicts IoT attacks, DDoS campaigns, targeted ransomware, advanced phishing campaigns, and attacks targeting containers and cloud services will be prevalent in 2019.

Read more details here.