As the world’s consideration turns to the 2024 Paris Olympics, companies world wide are on excessive alert for rising cybersecurity threats. A brand new report by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 reveals key threats that might have an effect on the Olympics. Titled the “Paris 2024 Threat Report,” the report focuses on numerous eventualities during which cybercriminals may attempt to disrupt the Olympics and associated companies.
In its evaluation, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 recognized important cyber threats, together with enterprise e-mail compromise (BEC) and monetary fraud, third-party interference, and exercise by Russian menace actors. The report describes how cybercriminals may exploit occasions by concentrating on organizations concerned within the occasion, together with transportation, hospitality, communications, media, cost processing, utilities, and security and safety companies. Attacks on these important companies may injury the occasion’s fame, disrupt attendee experiences, and trigger monetary losses for organizers and sponsors.
“Financially motivated crime is prone to be the very best and most persistent menace all through the occasion,” the report states. One main concern is the rise in ransomware assaults, which Palo Alto Networks famous are seeing a pointy enhance. In 2023, the group noticed practically 4,000 ransomware breach posts, which represents a 49% enhance from 2022, and 28% of incident response circumstances concerned ransomware using information encryption.
Another key menace highlighted within the report is enterprise e-mail compromise. BEC attackers sometimes impersonate Olympic sponsors or firms to trick victims into transferring massive quantities of cash. The common payout in such scams is reported to be over $500,000. Attackers exploit worry, uncertainty and doubt each earlier than and in the course of the occasion to hold out these monetary thefts.
The proliferation of fraudulent web sites and cell apps can also be a priority. Palo Alto Networks has already begun detecting domains impersonating respectable Olympic web sites. Additionally, fraudulent cell apps masquerading as transportation and reserving instruments look like a main infiltration vector for cybercriminals. Web skimming assaults to steal buyer information and cost card data pose a further menace to cost processors and companies.
To assist organizations strengthen their defenses, Palo Alto Networks provides 5 cybersecurity suggestions:
Second, implementing a defense-in-depth strategy requires designing a safety program with overlapping defenses and controls, which, particularly when mixed with a Zero Trust coverage, will increase the probability of detecting attackers earlier within the assault lifecycle.
Maintaining an incident response plan is our third advice. We encourage organizations to repeatedly assessment, replace, and check their incident response methods, ideally with recommendation from cybersecurity consultants. This preparation will significantly enhance your capability to comprise and reply to assaults.
Fourth, having full visibility into your assault floor is vital. The report highlights that 75% of incidents associated to ransomware assaults stem from internet-related vulnerabilities. A centralized, close to real-time visibility answer will help shortly establish and mitigate these vulnerabilities.
Finally, safety operations may be modernized by leveraging the capabilities of AI and automation. This know-how helps organizations scale back the workload of analysts and improves their capability to cease assaults earlier than they will trigger important injury. Additionally, organizations adopting cloud infrastructure should implement complete cloud-native safety measures to guard towards assaults focused at cloud workloads.
The 2024 Paris Olympics is predicted to draw world consideration, making it a chief goal for cybercriminals. Palo Alto says organizations straight or not directly concerned within the occasion ought to take into account these suggestions to guard themselves towards potential threats and make sure the integrity and success of the Olympics.