"Kaspersky" presented the report "Landscape of threats for Russia and the CIS" in 2024 and the first quarter of 2023. In the document, the Kaspersky Cyber Threat Intelligence team described current threats, compiled a list of attack tactics, techniques and procedures, as well as cyber risk mitigation measures.
The main conclusions of the report. Over the past year and a half, the threat of hacktivism has continued to gain momentum. Attackers target organizations with weak defenses without being tied to a specific branch, using any tool available on the open network. At the same time, groups that attack for espionage and financial gain, such as code hackers, are not slowing down.
Bad actors prefer not to change their scripts and attack the least prepared organizations from a cybersecurity perspective, for example by exploiting already known and widespread vulnerabilities in products that many organizations use.
Vulnerabilities in corporate network attacks. More than half of the most actively exploited CVEs were reported in the late last decade. The most common in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 was CVE-2021-44228 (Log4Shell), a critical vulnerability in the Apache Log4j repository that allows remote code execution. In second place is Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Windows Server vulnerability CVE-2019-0708 (BlueKeep). In addition to remote code execution, it also allows you to view confidential information, elevate privileges, and tamper with the user interface. Also among the top three exploits is the OpenSMTPD mail server vulnerability CVE-2020-7247, which allows remote code execution and elevation of privileges. Vulnerabilities in endpoint attacks. For attacks on corporate devices in Russia and the CIS, criminals most often use vulnerabilities in 7-Zip and WinRAR archivers, as well as in the Google Chrome browser. Attackers exploited 7-Zip vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-31102/CVE-2023-40481 and CVE-2022-29072) in attacks against organizations in Russia and the CIS in the first quarter of 2024 and in 2023. Vulnerabilities in WinRAR (CVE-2023-38831) and Google Chrome (CVE-2023-1822/CVE-2023-1812/ CVE-2023-1813 etc.) are also among the most common. Most of the most actively used loopholes (9 out of 10) allow the execution of malicious code. Moreover, almost all of them were registered in 2023. The threat of encryption programs. Malicious actors exploit the vulnerabilities for attacks using encryption programs. In 2024, they continue to be one of the top threats to organizations around the world. the number of such attacks is at a consistently high level, the total size of the ransom is increasing, and companies are facing the complexity of decryption. The top three types of encryption software in the first quarter of 2024 are Dcryptor, Lockbit and Conti trojans. In the same period last year, the trio was as follows. Phobos, Lockbit and Conti: "In preparing the report, our goal was to present a comprehensive study of the current cyber threat landscape, as well as to demonstrate once again that properly structured information security processes and analysis of attacker tactics, techniques and procedures remain a reliable means of countering cyber threats. In particular, to prevent vulnerabilities from being used in attacks on organizations, it is important to build a remediation process or Patch Management. It is also necessary to use complex defense solutions that allow to quickly identify threats and eliminate them. In addition to technical measures, it is worth paying attention to increasing the digital literacy of employees, because in most cases attacks become possible due to the human factor," comments Nikita Nazarov, head of the extended threat research department at Kaspersky.
