Many people envision cyber criminals as lone operators, working in solitude to hack into the systems of unsuspecting victims and turn a personal profit. While that’s some times the case, cyber-crime typically operates more like an underground market place, with criminals exchanging everything from malware to ideas and advice.

As with any marketplace, trends begin to emerge. Cyber criminals learn from each other, collaborate and invent new ways to improve efficiencies, leading to an uptick in certain tactics or particular breeds of malware. Cyber security teams are then able to track these trends and develop solutions and best practices to avoid falling victim to them.

Cyber criminals and security teams are locked in a cyber arms race of sorts, each gaining ground in some areas while experiencing set backs in others. In the Sonic Wall Annual Threat Report 2017,researchers in the Sonic Wall Capture Lab identified the top trends shaping the landscape of cyber security today. As the report points out, understanding the trends is the first step to reversing them.

Cyber Crime Trends
Ransom ware attacks have grown by 167x year-over-year, leading up to the recent global Wanna Cry attack. Ransom ware is nothing new, but it has certainly gained favor in the cyber criminal community over the past year.

On May 12 of this year, the Wanna Cry ransom ware attack quickly became the most famous ransom ware attack to date, thanks to how far-reaching and fast-moving it was. This attack targeted computers running Microsoft Windows, encrypting data and holding it ransom for Bitcoin payments. Within 24 hours, Wanna Cry hit an estimated 230,000 computers in 150 countries, including Great Britain’s National Health Service. While the attack may have only netted attackers an estimated $55,000 dollars so far, it gave the world a new awareness of the dangers posed by ransom ware.

Attackers Using IoT Botnets for Massive DDoS Attacks
The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) may be making daily life easier, but it is also creating new vulnerabilities for cyber criminals to exploit. IoT devices often hit the market without comprehensive security features baked in. Whether the devices lack regular security updates or simply does not prompt their owners to change the password

from the factory default, such security gaps leave devices vulnerable to be accessed by cyber criminals.

The battle for security may seem over whelming, but the more closely you follow best practices,the less likely you are to find your self on the wrong side of a network security trend.

Attackers leveraged the password mis step to launch the largest distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in history in 2016: the Mirai botnet attacks. Hackers leveraged hundreds of thousands of compromised IoT devices to rapidly access and over load servers run by domain provider Dyn, causing out ages for some of the world’s most prominent websites, including Netflix, Twitter, Air bnb and Spotify.

It’s estimated that DDoS attacks can cost victims $22,000 per minute. Considering most DDoS attacks last about six hours, the impact of an attack can be devastating, with some companies never recovering.

Cybersecurity Trends
while some types of attacks are growing, others are declining substantially, displaying the power of preemptive cyber security measures.

POS Malware Creation Declined by 93 Percent
Point-of-sale (POS) malware is one example of a cyber trend stopped nearly dead in its tracks after the retail industry made it a priority. POS malware impact hit an all-time high in 2014, when massive data breaches hit retail industry leaders, exposing millions of their customers’ credit card data.

The retail industry answered with mainstream implementation of chip-and-PIN POS technology. Since 2014, the Sonic Wall Capture Lab researchers have seen a 93 decrease in new POS malware creation thanks to such measures, proving that cyber security efforts are most successful when entire industries take them seriously.

Sixty Two Percent of Web Traffic is SSL/TLS Encrypted.
Another point scored for cyber security teams is the growth of Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) encryption. Sixty-two percent of total web traffic in 2016 was SSL/TLS encrypted. SSL/TLS encryption was developed as a way to protect payment data, primarily for e-Commerce and other online financial transactions. Today it is also used by businesses and cloud-based applications across the spectrum.

Though this trend is positive in theory, it can quickly become a double-edged sword if proper precautions are not taken. Many company fire walls do not perform deep packet inspection (DPI), enabling encrypted web traffic to pass through the firewall uninspected. The problem is that cyber criminals have recognized this gap and, as a result, have begun hiding malicious content in encrypted traffic. For SSL/TLS encryption to reach its full potential as a defense mechanism, companies should ensure they have a next-generation firewall that can handle SSL/TLS inspection and make sure this feature is enabled.

Cyber security is an arms race, but it's up to those in the trenches - both companies and consumers - to equip them selves with the knowledge and tools to fight attacks. This means updating your operating systems and applications as soon as possible, training employees not to open suspicious emails from unknown senders and staying away from unsecured networks on devices that will at any point connect with your corporate network.

The battle for security may seem over whelming, but the more closely you follow best practices, the less likely you are to find your self on the wrong side of a network security trend.