Researches From FortiGuard Labs Predict That IoT Attacks And New Evasion Techniques Are Coming This 2016! (Press Release)

If you think that your system, computer, tablets, smartphones, wearables and networks are safe. Think again. This coming 2016, Fortinet warns everyone not to keep your guard down as FortiGuard Labs researches recently predicted that there's a lot of attacks and new evasion techniques will arise as threats to IoT (Internet of things).

Researches from FortiGuard Labs predict that IoT attacks and new evasion techniques are coming this 2016!

Fortinet, the global leader in high performance cybersecurity solutions just made their annual predictions on the most significant trends in the malware and network security going into 2016. Last year, loT and cloud play heavily in the predictions, but this coming year new malicious tactics and strategies will create unique challenges for vendors and organizations around the globe. FortiGuard also predicted that the emergence of increasingly sophisticated evasion techniques will push the boundary, detection and forensic investigation as hackers face increasing pressure from law enforcement.

The top cyber security trends for 2016 includes:

Increased M2M Attacks and Propagation Between Devices - Several troublesome proofs of concept made headlines in 2015 demonstrating the vulnerability of IoT devices. In 2016, though, we expect to see further development of exploits and malware that target user communications protocols between these devices. FortiGuard researchers anticipated already that IoT will become central to "land and expand" attacks in which hackers will take advantage of vulnerabilities in connected consumer devices to get a foothold within the corporate networks and hardware to which they connect.

Worms and Viruses Designed to Specifically Attack IoT Devices - While worms and viruses have been costly and damaging in the past, the potential harm when they can propagate among millions or billions of devices that includes wearables to metal hardwares order of magnitude greater. FortiGuard researchers and others have already demonstrated that it is possible to infect headless devices with small amounts of code that can propagate and persist. Worms and viruses that can propagate from device to device are definitely on the radar.

Attack On Cloud and Virtualized Infrastructure - The Venom vulnerability that surfaced this year gave a hint about the potential for malware to escape from a hypervisor and access the host operating system in a virtualized environment. Growing reliance on virtualization and both private and hybrid clouds will make these kinds of attacks even more fruitful for cybercriminals. At the same time, because so many apps access cloud-based systems, mobile devices running compromised apps can potentially provide a vector for remotely attacking public and private clouds and corporate networks to which they are connected.

New Techniques That Thwart Forensic Investigations and Hide Evidence of Attacks - Rombertik garnered significant attention in 2015 as one of the first major pieces of "blastware" in the wild. But while blastware is designed to destroy and disable a system when it is detected (and FortiGuard predicts the continued use of this type of malware), "ghostware" is designed to erase the indicators of compromise that many security system are designed to detect. Thus, it can be very difficult for organization to track the extent of data loss associated with an attack.

Malware That Can Evade Even Advanced Sanboxing Techniques - Many organization have turned to sandboxing to detect hidden or unknown malware by observing the behavior of suspicious files at runtime. Two-faced malware, though, behaves normally while under inspection and then delivers a malicious payload once it has been passed by a sandbox. This can prove quite challenging to detect but can also interfere with threat intelligence mechanisms that rely on sandbox rating systems.

As Derek Manky, global security strategist for Fortinet explained, "Fortiguard Labs was formed over a decade ago to monitor and detect the latest threats, zero days, and emerging malware to provide the best possible protection for our customers. We leverage our incredible visibility into global threat landscape to develop actionable threat intelligence, allowing us to respond quickly to new threats."

Ken Xie, Fortinet founder and CEO, also noted that "As we look ahead at the threats associated with our increasing connectedness and proliferation of new devices, Fortinet is committed to delivering uncompromising security and further enhancing our solutions to meet both the current and future needs of our customers.

Pretty worrying right? Fortunately, and the good thing is Fortinet and the rest of their gang is already prepping a solution to counter attack those "might soon to come" dangerous threats. Let's all stay safe and protected this coming year.

For more info about Fortinet: Click Here!