CrowdStrike Threat Hunting Report 2022 – The Findings
CrowdStrike has recently released its fourth annual Falcon OverWatch threat hunting report. The report aims to inform businesses of the current adversary tactics and notable intrusions that have occurred so far in 2022. It starts by interrogating observed interactive threat actor behaviours and then uses that data to examine how and where cybercriminals are operating. The report offers a comprehensive overview of the threat landscape alongside practical recommendations to protect your business in 2022 and beyond.
Key Findings
The global threat report revealed record volumes of hands-on intrusion attempts along with distinct changes in attack trends and cybercriminal tradecraft. In the 12-month period of the report, threat hunters directly identified more than 77,000 potential intrusions, equating to approximately one intrusion every seven minutes. This represented thousands of occasions where human-led threat hunting uncovered adversaries actively trying to avoid autonomous detection at various stages of the attack chain. The report highlights that there was a 50 per cent increase in interactive intrusion campaigns but that over one million malicious events were prevented by the Falcon platform derived from OverWatch. Ultimately, every potential intrusion offers the Falcon platform an opportunity to learn, detect, and prevent similar intrusions from occurring.
Interactive Intrusion and Adversary Trends
The report took a retrospective look at the tools adversaries are leveraging, including emerging tools, trending tools, and those that have remained persistently popular. A number of trends were found to be typical over the past year, shining through the increase of newly disclosed vulnerabilities and zero-days, including:
- A vast array of affiliates are capitalising on the availability of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), contributing to wide variations in eCrime tradecraft.
- There was a near 50% increase in interactive intrusion campaigns, with the most recent quarter, April to June 2022, uncovering more than any previous quarter.
- Where attribution was possible, financially motivated eCrime activity was yet again the dominant threat type. Meanwhile, targeted intrusions increased to 18%.
- Interactive intrusion activity spanned 37 distinct industries, proving that no industry is immune and every business should remain vigilant.
- The technology sector played a critical role in supporting business operations. This reliance lead to cybercriminals targeting technology companies in an attempt to compromise supply chains or trusted relationships.
- Technology companies are also sought-after targets for ransomware campaigns by eCrime adversaries due to the potential value of owned data.
- The telecommunications industry remained in second place, with targeted intrusion adversaries conducting operations to fulfil their surveillance and counterintelligence priorities.
- Healthcare, manufacturing, and academia were also amongst the top five targeted industries over the past year.
- OverWatch uncovered interactive intrusion activity conducted by 36 distinct named threat actors, spanning seven groups.
- For hands-on eCrime intrusion activity, the average time it took a cybercriminal to move laterally from an initially compromised host to another within the environment was just 1 hour and 24 minutes. For 30% of these intrusions, breakout time was under 30 minutes.
- Malware-free activity accounted for 71% of all detections, in part due to the prolific abuse of valid credentials to facilitate access as well as persistence within victim environments.
- Cybercriminals are now confidently navigating through cloud-based assets to advance their intrusions.
The Future of Threat Hunting
Unfortunately, the only thing guaranteed in the world of threat hunting is change as cybercriminals continue to adapt. To account for this, OverWatch continually develops its technology and adapts to shifts in behaviour. As cybercriminals follow the increasing cloud adoption trend, they will continue to improve their abilities in navigating and exploiting cloud workloads in order to take advantage of underlying gaps in organisational defences. This creates an increasingly expansive and complex attack surface for businesses to defend. However, OverWatch threat hunters are also actively improving their cloud hunting capabilities and incorporating innovative technologies that enable them to hone in on suspicious telemetry.
For anyone with CrowdStrike Cloud Security looking to increase visibility and coverage of cloud-based resources, OverWatch now delivers proactive threat hunting for advanced threats originating, operating, and persisting in cloud environments. For those without CrowdStrike Cloud Security, OverWatch can still offer some visibility into cloud-based threats.
OverWatch remains on the cutting edge of the threat landscape, providing its customers with the coverage needed to remain ahead of the threats posed both in the last 12 months and into the future.
Bolster Your Defences
If you want to learn more about the threats your business is facing and have the power to make more proactive decisions about your security needs, both now and in the future, contact the experts at InfoTrust today. You can download the full CrowdStrike Threat Hunting Report from our resources library here.
see our
Related resources
Mimecast recently released its State of Email Security Report for 2021. The fifth edition of its annual report used interviews with over twelve hundred of information technology and cybersecurity professionals across the globe to gather vital cybersecurity insights. The report offers an insight into the latest email threats along with advice on how to build cyber resilience and mitigate the risks of email-borne attacks.
Cyber attacks and data breaches have been commonplace in the news headlines for some time now. Although a warning from the media is certainly helpful, there is so much more that can be done when it comes to threat intelligence sharing. Threat intelligence sharing is an important part of the global cybersecurity community effort to tackle cybercrime and should form a part of every organisation’s cybersecurity strategy. Sharing cyber threat intelligence enables organisations to make informed decisions about their cybersecurity, building more effective and robust cyber defences.
One of my favourite annual reports to read is the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. It’s packed full of insights about the threat landscape and security leaders, in my opinion, should read this report to get a pulse on what’s happening in cyber-scape.
After all, as cyber leaders, we are here to stop breaches – so the insights gained from real cyber incidents and breaches is gold in learning how to tighten up our defences.
All businesses, large and small, are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that they are managing the risk of cyberattacks. This means having the right processes and controls in place to identify risks and vulnerabilities, protect information, as well as detect, respond, and recover in the event of cybersecurity incidents. As such, many businesses are turning to certification authorities and security frameworks to demonstrate privacy and security best practice and achieve compliance with regulatory bodies. System and Organisation Controls (SOC 2) is one such compliance framework that can help organisations to create a structured approach to cybersecurity.
Frost & Sullivan has recently released its 2021 Frost Radar: Email Security report, where its findings provide a benchmarking framework to help businesses protect their email from cyber threats.
As we operate in an increasingly digital world, every business collect, store, and share more and more data. And, amongst that data is personal information. With the OAIC marking this year’s Privacy Awareness Week (PAW) from Monday 3 May to Sunday 9 May 2021, it’s time for us all to review how we protect our customers’ personal information.
We're Here To Help