Cyber-Attack automation gives hackers unprecedented advantage

Houston-based security company Alert Logic released a report flagging increasing cybersecurity concerns across industries. Evolutions in the way hackers attack organizations have increased risks to companies regardless of size.

Just as robocall scammers have become increasingly common over telephones, random automated and recursive attacks are being set up to test websites. Because the automated hacks hit both small and large organizations indiscriminately, industry and size are no longer reliable predictors of risk.

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And while cybersecurity specialists have traditionally broken hacks into separate stages of attack, which could be detected and combated early on, the majority of attacks are now combining those stages into a single step, testing a security system and delivering and installing malware nearly instantaneously.

Alert Logic reached these conclusions after analyzing data from .more than 1.2 billion anomalies, 7.2 million security events and 250,000 verified security incidents across its customer base over a 14-month period between 2017 and 2018.

“It’s no secret that attackers push the envelope and innovate attacks to abuse weaknesses anywhere they find them,” said Rohit Dhamankar, vice president of threat intelligence products at Alert Logic. “What is troublesome is the use of force-multipliers like automation to scale attacks for increased financial gain.”