Tag: abnormal security
2025 forecast to be boom year for cybersecurity
California-based cybersecurity goliath Palo Alto Networks has issued a bullish revenue forecast based on a perceived rising global demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven security products. “In Q2 [2025], our strong business performance was fuelled by customers adopting technology driven by the imperative of AI, including cloud investment and infrastructure modernization," said CEO Nikesh Arora. “Our growth across regions and demand for our platforms demonstrates our customers' confidence in our approach. It reaffirms our faith in our 2030 plans and our $15 billion next-generation technology annual recurring revenue goal.”
GenAI speeds up cybercrime
While Silicon Valley is finding that artificial intelligence (AI) is proving a tough sell to businesses and consumers, cybercriminals worldwide have lost little time in adapting the technology to cybercrime. The latest rogue AI offering is GhostGPT. According to Abnormal Security, Ghost GPT follows hard on the heels of earlier illicit AI offerings: WormGPT, WolfGPT, and EscapeGPT. To test its capabilities, Abnormal Security researchers asked GhostGPT to create a Docusign phishing email. The chatbot produced a convincing template with ease, demonstrating its ability to trick potential victims
Public sector phishing attacks increase fourfold
With national elections coming up later this year, US public-sector organizations are experiencing unprecedented levels of phishing attacks designed to dupe government staff into opening weaponized links in fake emails. According to email security firm Abnormal Security: “Between May 2023 and May 2024, public sector organizations experienced an astounding 360 percent growth in phishing attacks. While phishing tends to consistently increase each year and regularly accounts for the majority of advanced threats, this level of growth is extraordinary.”
Third-Party Attacks on the Rise
Criminal gangs are exploiting a new “side door” into organizations via connected third-party applications including everything from calendars to creative tools. Thwarted by the recent success of anti-phishing cybersecurity and aided by artificial intelligence (AI), criminal gangs are now compromising email accounts through third-party attacks. “Third-party applications connected to the email environment are being exploited, and organizations are making the lives of bad actors easier as they continue to connect more applications with high-risk permissions. Application overload is a common and dangerous trend,” says cybersecurity firm Abnormal Security. Abnormal Security believes that, although vulnerabilities in third-party software accounted for 13% of all breaches in 2022, costing organizations an average of US$4.55 million per incident, the problem has since worsened considerably. It quotes a recent vendor email compromise (VEC) attack that almost netted the criminals US$36 million, although most VEC attacks target less than US$150,000.
The UK is at ‘High Risk’ of Ransomware Attacks – December 14th
The Joint Committee on National Security Strategy (JCNSS) published a report "A hostage to fortune: ransomware and UK National Security," which revealed the UK's lack of planning against ransomware attacks. Targeted mainly at the critical cyber infrastructure of the UK government, the JCNSS report warns that a severe attack could disrupt the core of government services, healthcare, and child protection, which could lead to bringing the country to a 'standstill'.
New Sophisticated Attacks Demonstrated by Disney+ Impersonators – December 6th
Abnormal Security published a study revealing a Disney+ impersonation attack, demonstrating never-before-seen phishing tactics. The cybercriminals initiated the impersonation attack through an auto-generated notification email, about pending charges for their Disney+ subscription. The emails also demonstrated customized PDFs, with legitimate numbers & emails, inflated charges, and believable branding.
US healthcare attacks rise threefold
Following hard on the heels of the recent attack on the US Red Cross comes a report that text-based email attacks on the healthcare sector have risen almost threefold this year. Cybersecurity firm Abnormal Security reports that the healthcare industry has also seen an overall 167% increase in advanced email attacks in 2023, which includes credential phishing, malware, business email compromise (BEC), and extortion.
Threat actors’ preferred names? Microsoft, Meta, and Google
Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook, Google, and Amazon are some of the world's most respected brands, but they're also the most impersonated. With 300,000 successful phishing attacks recorded last year in the US alone and 71% of organizations experiencing an attempted or actual business email compromise the issue is only getting worse.