Ransomware Groups Shift to Zero-Day Exploitation
The last couple of years, most ransomware groups have been using phishing attacks as their primary attack technique. This past year, we have seen a shift to these groups putting a greater emphasis on vulnerability abuse instead. Leveraging zero-day vulnerabilities is not a new type of attack, what is new is the ability to scale this method on a large scale to compromise hundreds or even thousands of organizations.
Many ransomware groups are now developing their own zero-day attacks in house. In addition, they are also willing to pay other hackers for vulnerabilities, as well as acquire access to their intended targets through an access broker.
Zero-day vulnerabilities are unknown gaps in software security layers in which there currently is not a patch for. Unfortunately, many of the new zero-days discovered are variations on zero-day vulnerabilities vendors had already patched. At times, vendor fixes are part of the problem because they added new, exploitable flaws to the code base.
Zero-day vulnerabilities cause headaches for developers and vendors and have a long-term impact on the health of a business. The biggest risk factor of a zero-day effort is the element of uncertainty. Since companies are not aware of flaws in their code until attackers attempt to exploit them, staying protected can be challenging.
Ensuring you have the best security solutions stack is crucial to protecting your business. Patch management and vulnerability scans are extremely important to protect against zero-day vulnerabilities. Need help ensuring you are best protected against ransomware and other outside threats, let the expert team at 2W Tech help!
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