With governments across the globe gearing up for major elections, experts have been predicting an increase in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from nation-states and, so far, those predictions have paid off. According to Forbes, a recently thwarted DDoS attack found hackers sending traffic at 3.8 terabytes per second to a target server, peaking at 2.14 billion packets per second, making it the largest DDoS attack ever recorded.

Attack vectors and attack surfaces are both critical concepts in cybersecurity, closely related yet distinct in their roles and implications. Understanding the similarities and differences between them is key to developing robust security strategies. This article will detail what both concepts involve, why they’re crucial, and methods your organization can conduct to enhance its current security posture.

“Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?” In this iconic Star Wars moment, Princess Leia lazily responds to Luke Skywalker, disguised as one of her Stormtrooper captors and using authentication information to open her cell. In other words, Star Wars acts as an analogy for a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attack. In a CSRF attack, malicious actors use social engineering so that end-users will give them a way to “hide” in their authenticated session.

Compromised secrets, such as leaked API and SSH keys, credentials, and session tokens, are the leading cause of cloud security incidents. While attackers can directly compromise secrets through methods like phishing, they can also gain control by finding and taking advantage of simple misconfigurations in your environment.

As generative AI evolves and becomes a mainstream part of cyber attacks, new data reveals that deepfakes are leading the way. Deepfake technology has been around for a number of years, but the AI boom has sparked new attacks, campaigns, and players all trying to use the impersonation technology to rob victims of their credentials, personal details or money. We recently covered multiple deepfake campaigns all perpetrated by a single individual that reached a global level.

The holiday shopping season is almost here, and according to the 2024 Trustwave Risk Radar Report: Retail Sector, threat actors have honed their skills and are prepared to use ransomware and phishing attacks that leverage well-known online brands to conduct direct attacks and fraud operations against retailers and consumers. Skills they will then use to infiltrate retail organizations of all types throughout the rest of the year.

Cross-site scripting attacks are the digital version of the mystery trope where people inject IV lines with hazardous material. In the murder mystery genre, these crimes often focus on someone who looks legitimate, sneaking malicious material into someone’s medicine to harm the patient. Similarly, a cross-site scripting attack is when a threat actor sneaks malicious code into someone’s application to harm end users.

Cybercriminals are offering tools to help phishing pages avoid detection by security tools, according to researchers at SlashNext. “Anti-bot services, like Otus Anti-Bot, Remove Red, and Limitless Anti-Bot, have become a cornerstone of complex phishing operations,” the researchers write. “These services aim to prevent security crawlers from identifying phishing pages and blocklisting them.

There are several tactics that threat actors can use to access cloud environments, services, and data. A common example is lateral movement, which involves techniques that enable a threat actor to pivot from one host to the next within an environment. This type of activity often uses other tactics, such as initial access and privilege escalation, as part of a larger attack flow.