Executive
Summary
The cyberattacks of 2017 proved more numerous,
sophisticated, and ruthless than in years past. Threat actors,
armed with knowledge stolen from the CIA and tools lifted
from the NSA, demonstrated an elevated level of proficiency.
WannaCry and NotPetya, two prominent threats from last year,
successfully exploited these stolen assets in their assault on
systems worldwide.
As 2017 progressed, new opportunities developed in
ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), opening the gates of
malware-for-profit to everyone. Advancements in fileless
attacks provided new ways for threats to hide from once
reliable detection methods. Malware features such as
polymorphism continued to play a powerful role in evading
traditional defenses.
The victims of cybercrime ranged from private businesses
to the fundamental practices of democracy. France and the
United States saw significant data breaches during their
recent presidential elections. Several high-profile companies
lost their customers’ personally identifiable information to
cyberattacks, blemishing their brands and costing them
untold millions in recovery operations.
This report contains an overview of the threat trends and
malware families Cylance`s customers faced in 2017. This
information is shared with the goal of assisting security
practitioners, researchers, and individuals in our collective
battle against emerging and evolving cyberthreats.
Methodology
Cylance® provides security solutions that are focused on
protecting endpoints and servers from being compromised
by malware, malicious scripts, fileless attacks, and other
advanced threats. Through a lightweight endpoint agent
and encrypted communication channels, when a threat is
detected information about the event, including telemetry
data, is transmitted to the customers` private tenant in the
Cylance cloud. This report is based in large part on this
anonymized threat data collected between January 1, 2016
and December 31, 2017.
201
Threat Analysis
ey Findings
• On average, Cylance
prevented 3,918 attacks
per enterprise in the year
2017, representing an
increase of nearly 13.4%
over last year
• Within our customer
base, the food and
hospitality industries
suffered the highest
volume of attacks
• The top two infection
vectors remained email
and drive-by downloads
• System damage and data
destruction represented
top risks from threats
executing within an
enterprise environment
• Ransomware attacks
grew threefold during
2 0 1 7, a f f e c t i n g a l l
verticals, but impacting
healthcare the most
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