Cloud-Delivered Malware Increased 68% in Q2, Netskope Reports

 

Cybersecurity firm Netskope published the fifth edition of its Cloud and Threat Report that covers the cloud data risks, menaces, and trends they see throughout the quarter. According to the security firm report, malware delivered over the cloud increased 68% in the second quarter.

"In Q2 2021, 43% of all malware downloads were malicious Office docs, compared to just 20% at the beginning of 2020. This increase comes even after the Emotet takedown, indicating that other groups observed the success of the Emotet crew and have adopted similar techniques," the report said.

“Collaboration apps and development tools account for the next largest percentage, as attackers abuse popular chat apps and code repositories to deliver malware. In total, Netskope detected and blocked malware downloads originating from 290 distinct cloud apps in the first half of 2021." 

Cybersecurity researchers explained that threat actors deliver malware via cloud applications “to bypass blocklists and take advantage of any app-specific allow lists.” Cloud service providers usually eliminate most malware instantly, but some attackers have discovered methods to do significant damage in the short time they spend in a system without being noticed.

According to the company's researchers, cloud storage apps account for more than 66% of cloud malware distribution. Approximately 35% of all workloads are also susceptible to the public internet within AWS, Azure, and GCP, with public IP addresses that are accessible from anywhere on the internet.

“A popular infiltration vector for attackers” are RDP servers which were exposed in 8.3% of workloads. Today, the average company with 500-2,000 employees uses 805 individual apps and cloud services, 97% of which are “unmanaged and often free by business units and users.”

According to Netskope's findings, employees leaving the organization upload three times more data to their personal apps in the last 30 days of employment. The uploads are leaving company data exposed because much of it is uploaded to personal Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, which are popular targets for cybercriminals. 

As stated by chief security scientist and advisory CISO at ThycoticCentrify Joseph Carson, last year’s change to a hybrid work environment requires cybersecurity to evolve from perimeter and network-based to cloud, identity, and privileged access management. 

“Organizations must continue to adapt and prioritize managing and securing access to the business applications and data, such as that similar to the BYOD types of devices, and that means further segregation networks for untrusted devices but secured with strong privileged access security controls to enable productivity and access,” Carson said.

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