IBM Announces 2019 Threat Intelligence Index
Cryptojacking increased by 450%, ransomware decreased by 45%.
| The financial industry is the biggest target, followed by the transportation industry.

According to a report released on the 27th by IBM X-Force Security Research, cryptojacking cyberattacks related to cryptocurrency have seen the largest increase over the past year.
The 2019 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, an annual report from IBM X-Force Security Labs, found that ransomware used in cyberattacks decreased significantly over the past year, with cryptojacking attacks nearly doubling the number of ransomware attacks.

In Q4 2018, attempts to install ransomware on devices decreased by 45% compared to Q1, but cryptojacking attacks increased by 450%, more than quadrupling over the same period. This means that hackers used victims' computers to mine cryptocurrency illegally and profit from it as cryptocurrency prices soared last year.

Changes have occurred not only in hacking methods but also in their targets. IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS) reported that the financial sector was the most targeted industry for cyberattacks last year (19%), followed by the transportation sector (13%). The transportation sector saw a more than threefold increase in attacks compared to the previous year. The service sector (12%), retail (11%), and manufacturing (10%) were the most targeted industries.

Rising awareness of cybercrime and stricter security policies have transformed hacker tactics. Recently, hackers are leveraging fileless malware, which executes code from memory or the registry rather than copying files or folders to the hard drive. They are also intelligently leveraging PowerShell, a built-in operating system tool included in Windows 7 and later, to gain direct administrative access. Furthermore, attacks that access user directories through the Windows Management Instrumentation command line (WMIC) are also spreading.

IBM X-Force also announced that there is an increase in techniques that exploit components installed in IT systems rather than malware, and that 57% of all cyber attacks utilize operating system tools.

Targeted phishing attacks, on the other hand, accounted for 29%. Other key issues cited included an increase in the number of vulnerabilities reported within companies, increased damage caused by security configuration errors, and ongoing business email compromise (BEC) attacks.

“Our analysis of cyberattack trends over the past year shows that return on investment is emerging as a real motivator,” said Wendi Whitmore, global general manager, IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS). “In the past three years, 11.7 billion records have been compromised or stolen.”

He continued, "Hackers need a variety of knowledge and resources to profit from stolen personal identification information, so they are exploring various methods to increase profitability. The most popular target is computing power, which is linked to the rise of cryptocurrencies."

“This has resulted in the secret hijacking of corporate networks and consumer devices to mine cryptocurrency,” he added.

The report is based on data collected and analyzed from over 70 billion threat events per day across more than 130 countries, including X-Force Breach Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS), X-Force Red, IBM Managed Security Services, and other publicly available sources.