>>Welcome to this cube conversation with 40 net. I'm your host. Lisa Martin, Derek Minky is back. He's the chief security insights and global threat alliances at 40 minutes, 40 guard labs, Derek. Welcome back to the program. >>Likewise, we've talked a lot this year. And of course, when I saw that there are, uh, you guys have predictions from 40 guard labs, global threat intelligence and research team about the cyber threat landscape for 2022. I thought it was going to be a lot to talk about with Derek here. So let's go ahead and dig. Right in. First of all, one of the things that caught my attention was the title of the press release about the predictions that was just revealed. The press release says 40 guard labs, predict cyber attacks aimed at everything from crypto wallets to satellite internet, nothing. There is no surface that is safe anymore. Talk to me about some of the key challenges that organizations in every industry are facing. >>Yeah, absolutely. So this is a, as you said, you, you had the keyword there surface, right? That, and that attack surface is, is open for attack. That's the attack surface that we talk about it is literally be pushed out from the edge to space, like a lot of these places that had no connection before, particularly in OT environments off grid, we're talking about, uh, you know, um, uh, critical infrastructure, oil and gas, as an example, there's a lot of these remote units that were living out there that relied on field engineers to go in and, uh, you know, plug into them. They were air gapped, those such low. Those are the things that are going to be accessible by Elio's low earth orbit satellites. And there are 4,000 of those out there right now. There's going to be over 30,000. We're talking Starlink, we're talking at least four or five other competitors entering this space, no pun intended. And, um, and that's a big deal because that it's a gateway. It opens the door for cyber criminals to be able to have accessibility to these networks. And so security has to come, you know, from, uh, friends of mine there, right. >>It absolutely does. We've got this fragmented perimeter tools that are siloed, the expand and very expanded attack surface, as you just mentioned, but some of the other targets, the 5g enabled edge, the core network, of course, the home environment where many of us still are. >>Yeah, yeah, definitely. So that home environment like the edge, it is a, uh, it's, it's the smart edge, right? So we have things called edge access Trojans. These are Trojans that will actually impact and infect edge devices. And if you think about these edge devices, we're talking things that have machine learning and, and auto automation built into them a lot of privilege because they're actually processing commands and acting on those commands in a lot of cases, right? Everything from smart office, smart home option, even until the OT environment that we're talking about. And that is a juicy target for attackers, right? Because these devices naturally have more privileged. They have APIs and connectivity to a lot of these things where they could definitely do some serious damage and be used as these pivot within the network from the edge. Right. And that's, that's a key point there. >>Let's talk about the digital wallet that we all walk around with. You know, we think out so easy, we can do quick, simple transactions with apple wallet, Google smart tab, Venmo, what have you, but that's another growing source of that, where we need to be concerned, right? >>Yeah. So I, I I've, I've worn my cyber security hat for over 20 years and 10 years ago, even we were talking all about online banking Trojans. That was a big threat, right? Because a lot of financial institutions, they hadn't late ruled out things like multifactor authentication. It was fairly easy to get someone's bank credentials go in siphoned fans out of an account. That's a lot harder nowadays. And so cyber criminals are shifting tactics to go after the low hanging fruit, which are these digital wallets and often cryptocurrency, right? We've actually seen this already in 40 guard labs. Some of this is already starting to happen right now. I expect this to happen a lot more in 20, 22 and beyond. And it's because, you know, these wallets are, um, hold a lot of whole lot of value right now, right. With the crypto. And they can be transferred easily without having to do a, like a, you know, EFT is a Meijer transfers and all those sorts of things that includes actually a lot of paperwork from the financial institutions. And, you know, we saw something where they were actually hijacking these wallets, right. Just intercepting a copy and paste command because it takes, you know, it's a 54 character address people aren't typing that in all the time. So when they're sending or receiving funds, they're asking what we've actually seen in malware today is they're taking that, intercepting it and replacing it with the attackers. Well, it's simple as that bypassing all the, you know, authentication measures and so forth. >>And is that happening for the rest of us that don't have a crypto wallet. So is that happening for folks with apple wallets? And is that a growing threat concern that people need to be? It is >>Absolutely. Yeah. So crypto wallets is, is the majority of overseeing, but yeah, no, no digital wallet is it's unpatched here. Absolutely. These are all valid targets and we are starting to see activity in. I am, >>I'm sure going after those stored credentials, that's probably low-hanging fruit for the attackers. Another thing that was interesting that the 2022 predictions threat landscape, uh, highlighted was the e-sports industry and the vulnerabilities there. Talk to me about that. That was something that I found surprising. I didn't realize it was a billion dollar revenue, a year industry, a lot of money, >>A lot of money, a lot of money. And these are our full-blown platforms that have been developed. This is a business, this isn't, you know, again, going back to what we've seen and we still do see the online gaming itself. We've seen Trojans written for that. And oftentimes it's just trying to get into, and user's gaming account so that they can steal virtual equipment and current, you know, there there's virtual currencies as well. So there was some monetization happening, but not on a grand scale. This is about a shift attackers going after a business, just like any organization, big business, right. To be able to hold that hostage effectively in terms of DDoSs threats, in terms of vulnerabilities, in terms of also, you know, crippling these systems with ransomware, like we've already seen starting to hit OT, this is just another big target. Right. Um, and if you think about it, these are live platforms that rely on low latency. So very quick connections, anything that interrupts that think about the Olympics, right on sports environment, it's a big deal to them. And there's a lot of revenue that could be lost in cybercriminals fully realizes. And this is why, you know, we're predicting that e-sports is going to be a, um, a big target for them moving forward. >>Got it. And tell, let's talk about what's going on with brands. So when you and I spoke a few months ago, I think it was ransomware was up nearly 11 X in the first half of a calendar year, 2021. What are you seeing from an evolution perspective, uh, in the actual ransomware, um, actions themselves as well as what the, what the cyber criminals are evolving to. >>Yeah. So to where it's aggressive, destructive, not good words, right. But, but this is what we're seeing with ransomware. Now, again, they're not just going after data as the currency, we're seeing, um, destructive capabilities put into ransomware, including wiper malware. So this used to be just in the realm of, uh, APTT nation state attacks. We saw that with should moon. We saw that with dark soil back in 2013, so destructive threats, but in the world of apt and nation state, now we're seeing this in cyber crime. We're seeing it with ransomware and this, I expect to be a full-blown tactic for cyber criminals simply because they have the, the threat, right. They've already leveraged a lot of extortion and double extortion schemes. We've talked about that. Now they're going to be onboarding this as a new threat, basically planting these time bombs. He's ticking time bombs, holding systems for, for, for ransom saying, and probably crippling a couple of, to show that they mean business and saying, unless you pay us within a day or two, we're going to take all of these systems offline. We're not just going to take them offline. We're going to destroy them, right. That's a big incentive for people to, to, to pay up. So they're really playing on that fear element. That's what I mean about aggressive, right? They're going to be really shifting tactics, >>Aggressive and destructive, or two things you don't want in a cybersecurity environment or to be called by your employer. Just wanted to point that out. Talk to me about wiper malware. Is this new emerging, or is this something that's seeing a resurgence because this came up at the Olympics in the summer, right? >>Absolutely. So a resurgence in, in a sort of different way. Right. So, as I said, we have seen it before, but it's been not too prevalent. It's been very, uh, it's, it's been a niche area for them, right. It's specifically for these very highly targeted attack. So yes, the Olympics, in fact, two times at the Olympics in Tokyo, but also in the last summer Olympics as well. We also saw it with, as I mentioned in South Korea at dark school in 2013, we saw it an OT environment with the moon as an example, but we're talking handfuls here. Uh, unfortunately we have blogged about three of these in the last month to month and a half. Right. And that, and you know, this is starting to be married with ransomware, which is particularly a very dangerous cause it's not just my wiper malware, but couple that with the ransom tactics. >>And that's what we're starting to see is this new, this resurgent. Yes. But a completely new form that's taking place. Uh, even to the point I think in the future that it could, it could severely a great, now what we're seeing is it's not too critical in a sense that it's not completely destroying the system. You can recover the system still we're talking to master boot records, those sorts of things, but in the future, I think they're going to be going after the formal firmware themselves, essentially turning some of these devices into paperweights and that's going to be a very big problem. >>Wow. That's a very scary thought that getting to the firmware and turning those devices into paperweights. One of the things also that the report talked about that that was really interesting. Was that more attacks against the supply chain and Linux, particularly talk to us about that. What did you find there? What does it mean? What's the threat for organizations? >>Yeah. So we're seeing a diversification in terms of the platforms that cyber criminals are going after. Again, it's that attack surface, um, lower hanging fruit in a sense, uh, because they've, you know, for a fully patched versions of windows, 10 windows 11, it's harder, right. For cyber criminals than it was five or 10 years ago to get into those systems. If we look at the, uh, just the prevalence, the amount of devices that are out there in IOT and OT environments, these are running on Linux, a lot of different flavors and forms of Linux, therefore this different security holes that come up with that. And that's, that's a big patch management issue as an example too. And so this is what we, you know, we've already seen it with them or I bought net and this was in our threat landscape report, or I was the number one threat that we saw. And that's a Linux-based bot net. Now, uh, Microsoft has rolled out something called WSL, which is a windows subsystem for Linux and windows 10 and windows 11, meaning that windows supports Linux now. So that all the code that's being written for botnets, for malware, all that stuff is able to run on, on new windows platforms effectively. So this is how they're trying to expand their, uh, attack surface. And, um, that ultimately gets into the supply chain because again, a lot of these devices in manufacturing and operational technology environments rely quite heavily actually on Linux. >>Well, and with all the supply chain issues that we've been facing during the pandemic, how can organizations protect themselves against this? >>Yeah. So this, this is a big thing, right? And we talked about also the weaponization of artificial intelligence, automation and all of these, there's a lot going on as you know, right from the threats a lot to get visibility on a lot, to be able to act quickly on that's a big key metric. There is how quick you can detect these and respond to them for that. You need good threat intelligence, of course, but you also truly need to enable, uh, uh, automation, things like SD wan, a mesh architecture as well, or having a security fabric that can actually integrate devices that talk to each other and can detect these threats and respond to them quickly. That's a very important piece because if you don't stop these attacks well, they're in that movement through the attack chain. So the kill chain concept we talk about, um, the risk is very high nowadays where, you know, everything we just talked about from a ransomware and destructive capabilities. So having those approaches is very important. Also having, um, you know, education and a workforce trained up is, is equally as important to, to be, you know, um, uh, to, to be aware of these threats. >>I'm glad you brought up that education piece and the training, and that's something that 49 is very dedicated to doing, but also brings up the cybersecurity skills gap. I know when I talked with Kenzie, uh, just a couple months ago at the, um, PGA tournament, it was talking about, you know, big investments in what 40 guard, 40, 40 net is doing to help reduce that gap. But the gap is still there. How do I teach teams not get overloaded with the expanding service? It seems like the surface, the surface has just, there is no limit anymore. So how does, how does it teams that are lean and small help themselves in the fact that the threat is landscape is, is expanding. The criminals are getting smarter or using AI intelligent automation, what our it teams do >>Like fire with fire. You got to use two of the same tools that they're using on their side, and you need to be able to use in your toolkit. We're talking about a security operation center perspective to have tools like, again, this comes to the threat intelligence to get visibility on these things. We're talking Simmons, sor uh, we have, you know, 40 AI out now, uh, deception products, all these sorts of things. These are all tools that need that, that, uh, can help, um, those people. So you don't have to have a, you know, uh, hire 40 or 50 people in your sock, right? It's more about how you can work together with the tools and technology to get, have escalation paths to do more people, process procedure, as we talk about to be able to educate and train on those, to be able to have incident response planning. >>So what do you do like, because inevitably you're going to be targeted, probably interacts where attack, what do you do? Um, playing out those scenarios, doing breach and attack simulation, all of those things that comes down to the skills gaps. So it's a lot about that education and awareness, not having to do that. The stuff that can be handled by automation and AI and, and training is you're absolutely right. We've dedicated a lot with our NSC program at 49. We also have our 40 net security academy. Uh, you know, we're integrating with those secondary so we can have the skillsets ready, uh, for, for new graduates. As an example, there's a lot of progress being made towards that. We've even created a new powered by 40 guard labs. There is a 40 guard labs play in our NSC seven as an example, it's, uh, you know, for, um, uh, threat hunting and offensive security as an example, understanding really how attackers are launching their, their campaigns and, um, all those things come together. But that's the good news actually, is that we've come a long way. We actually did our first machine learning and AI models over 10 years ago, Lisa, this isn't something new to us. So the technology has gone a long way. It's just a matter of how we can collaborate and obviously integrate with that for the, on the skills gap. >>And one more question on the actual threat landscape, were there any industries that came up in particular, as we talked about e-sports we talked about OT and any industries that came up in particular as, as really big hotspots that companies and organizations really need to be aware of. >>Yeah. So also, uh, this is part of OT about ICS critical infrastructure. That's a big one. Uh, absolutely there we're seeing, uh, also cyber-criminals offering more crime services now on dark web. So CAS, which is crime as a service, because it used to be a, again, a very specialized area that maybe only a handful of organized criminal organizations could actually, um, you know, launch attacks and, and impact to those targets where they're going after those targets. Now they're offering services right on to other coming cyber criminals, to be able to try to monetize that as well. Again, we're seeing this, we actually call it advanced persistent cybercrime APC instead of an apt, because they're trying to take cyber crime to these targets like ICS, critical infrastructure, um, healthcare as well is another one, again, usually in the realm of APMT, but now being targeted more by cybercriminals in ransomware, >>I've heard of ransomware as a service, is that a subcategory of crime as a service? >>Absolutely. Yeah. It is phishing as a service ransomware as, and service DDoSs as a service, but not as, as many of these subcategories, but a ransomware as a service. That's a, another big problem as well, because this is an affiliate model, right. Where they hire partners and pay them commission, uh, if they actually get payments of ransom, right? So they have literally a middle layer in this network that they're pushing out to scale their attacks, >>You know, and I think that's the last time we talked about ransomware, we talked about it's a matter of, and I talk to customers all the time who say, yes, it's a matter of when, not, if, is, is this the same sentiment? And you think for crime as a service in general, the attacks on e-sports on home networks, on, uh, internet satellites in space, is this just a matter of when, not if across the board? >>Well, yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, but the good news is it doesn't have to be a, you know, when it happens, it doesn't have to be a catastrophic situation. Again, that's the whole point about preparedness and planning and all the things I talked about, the filling the skills gap in education and having the proper, proper tools in place that will mitigate that risk. Right. And that's, and that's perfectly acceptable. And that's the way we should handle this from the industry, because we process we've talked about this, people are over a hundred billion threats a day in 40 guard labs. The volume is just going to continue to grow. It's very noisy out there. And there's a lot of automated threats, a lot of attempts knocking on organizations, doors, and networks, and, you know, um, phishing emails being sent out and all that. So it's something that we just need to be prepared for just like you do for a natural disaster planning and all these sorts of other things in the physical world. >>That's a good point. It doesn't have to be aggressive and destructive, but last question for you, how can, how is 4d guard helping companies in every industry get aggressive and disruptive against the threats? >>Yeah. Great, great, great question. So this is something I'm very passionate about, uh, as you know, uh, where, you know, we, we don't stop just with customer protection. Of course, that is as a security vendor, that's our, our primary and foremost objective is to protect and mitigate risk to the customers. That's how we're doing. You know, this is why we have 24 7, 365 operations at 40 guy labs. Then we're helping to find the latest and greatest on threat intelligence and hunting, but we don't stop there. We're actually working in the industry. Um, so I mentioned this before the cyber threat Alliance to, to collaborate and share intelligence on threats all the way down to disrupt cybercrime. This is what big target of ours is, how we can work together to disrupt cyber crime. Because unfortunately they've made a lot of money, a lot of profits, and we need to reduce that. We need to send a message back and fight that aggressiveness and we're we're on it, right? So we're working with Interpol or project gateway with the world economic forum, the partnership against cyber crime. It's a lot of initiatives with other, uh, you know, uh, the, uh, the who's who of cyber security in the industry to work together and tackle this collaboratively. Um, the good news is there's been some steps of success to that. There's a lot more, we're doing the scale of the efforts. >>Excellent. Well, Derek as always great and very informative conversation with you. I always look forward to these seeing what's going on with the threat landscape, the challenges, the increasing challenges, but also the good news, the opportunities in it, and what 40 guard is doing 40 left 40 net, excuse me, I can't speak today to help customers address that. And we always appreciate your insights and your time we look forward to talking to you and unveiling the next predictions in 2022. >>All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Lisa. >>My pleasure for Derek manky. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this cube conversation with 40 net. Thanks for watching.