Check-Point-2015-Security-Report
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2015 SECURITY REPORT CHECK POINT 2015 SECURITY REPORT 01 INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY 04 02 UNKNOWN MALWARE: THE VAST UNKNOWN 10 03 KNOWN MALWARE: KNOWN AND DANGEROUS 18 04 MOBILE SECURITY: DON’T FENCE ME IN 32 05 APPLICATIONS: GETTING YOU WHERE IT HURTS 40 06 DATA LOSS: LIKE SAND THROUGH THE HOUR GLASS 48 07 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: 56 THE PATH TO PROTECTION REFERENCES 60 CHECK POINT - 2015 SECURITY REPORT | 3 01 INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY “The first time you do something, it’s science. The second time you do something, it’s engineering.” 1 –Clifford Stoll, astronomer, author, digital forensics pioneer CHECKINTRODUCTION POINT - 2015 AND SECURITY METHODOLOGY REPORT | 4 THE EVOLUTION OF MALWARE THE SECURITY LANDSCAPE | ACCELERATION OF OF MALWARE 25 YEARS AGO 20 YEARS AGO 15 YEARS AGO 10 YEARS AGO 5 YEARS AGO NOW Invention of Invention of Prevalent Use URL Filtering, NGFW Threat Intelligence, Firewall Stateful of Anti-Virus, UTM Threat Prevention, Inspection VPN, IPS Mobile Security > 1988 1994 1998 2003 2006 2010 2014 2020 Morris Worm Green Card Lottery Melissa Anonymous WikiLeaks DDoS Bitcoin IoT Everywhere Formed Attacks: Stuxnet SCADA 2000 2007 2013 2017 I Love You Zeus Trojan Dragonfly Driverless Cars Hacked? 2011 Stolen Authentication 2012 Information Flame Malware In science, it’s all about discovery—studying cause other mobile devices might not be tools, per se, but and effect. Once something is understood and can be they can be hijacked to give hackers the ability to predicted, it then becomes a process of engineering, penetrate corporate networks. to replicate. In the world of cyber threats, it’s the same. Cyber criminals are studying structures During 2014, Check Point saw significant and thinking through how certain factors can spur exploits of vulnerabilities in open source software, desired outcomes. Once they have a predictive as well as in common applications by Adobe model, they set about engineering how to unleash and Microsoft. what they’ve designed, for the greatest effect. Known malware remained steady, continuing to What are their tools? be pervasive and inflicting damage. But with the 1. Malware—malicious software code that hackers creation of signatures to help identify, filter, and develop to either create disruption or to steal block subsequent deployment attempts of known data. When malware becomes known, signatures malware, the focus among hackers changed. They are created to help identify, filter, and block it in looked to something easier and more rewarding: subsequent deployment attempts. And that’s when launching new attacks with unknown malware by they turn to tampering with the code to create fresh slightly modifying what already existed—enabling unknown malware. it to evade detection. It’s this area—unknown 2. Vulnerabilities—defects in software or operating malware—that exploded and caught most people’s systems that hackers seek to exploit, which exist in attention during 2014. Launching at unprecedented almost all applications. rates, new malware seemed to have a singular 3. Mobile Devices—smartphones, Fitbits, iPads, and purpose: stealing data. INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY | 5 AN AVERAGE DAY AT AN ENTERPRISE ORGANIZATION EVERY 24 SECONDS a host accesses a malicious website EVERY 34 SECONDS an unknown malware is downloaded EVERY 1 MINUTE a bot communicates with its command and control center EVERY 5 MINUTES a high-risk application is used EVERY 6 MINUTES a known malware is downloaded EVERY 36 MINUTES sensitive data are sent outside the organization 1.1 SOURCE: Check Point Software Technologies INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY | 6 “The first computer viruses hit computers in the early 1980s, and essentially we’ve been in a cyber arms race ever since. We design new defenses, and then hackers and criminals design new ways to penetrate them….We’ve got to be just as fast and flexible and nimble in constantly evolving our defenses.” 2 -President Barack Obama Contributing to the problem: cultural shifts. Between the frequency of the breaches and Mobility, virtualization and other new technologies the high profiles of the businesses targeted, have changed the way we work. And in the 2014 sent all organizations a clear message: process, businesses have rushed to adopt Everyone is at risk. these tools to boost productivity and efficiency. But they’ve done so without considering the And when world leaders choose to focus on security implications. While they are quite focused cyber security as they address their nations, on stability and uptime, they don’t realize that it seems clear that cybercrime has reached a better-secured environments have higher uptimes. critical point. METHODOLOGY During 2014, Check Point collected event data from ThreatCloud®, which is connected to security three different sources around the world to shine a gateways of more than 16,000 organizations. light on security trends, and identify issues that are 3. From more than 3,000 gateways connected to on the rise or, in some cases, in decline. our ThreatCloud Emulation Services. Sources of Check Point Research: What did we look at? 1. From security events found during more than Unknown Malware 1,300 organizations’ Security Checkups.3 This Known Malware information hailed from businesses from all Intrusion Prevention industries around the globe. High-Risk Applications 2. From events discovered through Check Point Data Loss Incidents Almost every organization that was studied experienced 81% attacks due to high-risk of the organizations sampled had suffered a data applications loss incident INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY | 7 CHECK POINT RESEARCH CROSSED ALL INDUSTRIES 46 Looking at the vertical markets that participated in our research, manufacturing led the way at 46 percent, with representation across the board by finance, government, retail and wholesale, telco, and consulting. 17 15 12 4 3 2 PERCENT OF ORGANIZATIONS BY INDUSTRY BY PERCENT OF ORGANIZATIONS MANUFACTURING FINANCE GOVERNMENT RETAIL AND TELCO CONSULTING OTHER WHOLESALE 1.2 SOURCE: Check Point Software Technologies INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY | 8 Security Statistics in 2014 • New malware increased 71%.4 • 106 downloads of unknown malware occurred per hour. • 86% of organizations accessed a malicious site. • 83% of organizations had existing bot infections. • 42% of businesses suffered mobile security incidents costing more than $250,000 to remediate. • 96% of organizations used at least one high-risk application. • 81% of organizations suffered a data loss incident. • Loss of proprietary information increased 71% over the past three years. In the following pages, Check Point reveals the security and business leaders understand the findings of our in-depth analysis of security threats threat landscape and how to create the strongest and trends uncovered in 2014. Our aim is to help security posture possible. “Hackers don’t take realities of the world for granted; they seek to break and rebuild what they don’t like. They seek to outsmart the world.” 5 -Sarah Lacy, journalist and author INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY | 9 02 UNKNOWN MALWARE: THE VAST UNKNOWN “There’s always the risk that there are unknown unknowns.” 6 –Nate Silver, statistician, journalist 10 | INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY CHECKINTRODUCTION POINT - 2015 AND SECURITY METHODOLOGY REPORT | 10 unknown malware hit an 106 organization every hour Unknown malware is malware typically not organizations downloaded at least one infected recognized or known by anti-virus systems. Each file with unknown malware—almost a 25 percent new unknown malware variant, even if it only increase from the previous year. has minor alterations, is potentially capable of bypassing the most current anti-virus and virtual Worse is the speed at which this is occurring. sandbox protections. Check Point’s research showed that on a daily basis, 106 unknown malware downloads were While we saw an explosion of unknown malware occurring per hour. That staggering figure is 48 last year, it was merely the tip of the iceberg, times bigger than last year’s mere 2.2 downloads when viewed through today’s lens. Now, the rate of per hour. zero-day and unknown malware is massive. From 2013 to 2014, new malware jumped just over 71 Incredibly, only one percent of enterprises use percent from 83M to 142M, according to AV-Test, technologies to prevent zero-day attacks. And, an independent service provider of anti-virus only one tenth of enterprises consume threat research. And, more malware was found in the past intelligence services. Looking at the volume of two years than in the previous 10 years combined. unknown malware that was downloaded, 52 percent of infected files were PDFs, while 3 percent were During 2014, Check Point analyzed more than Office files. 3,000 gateways and found that 41 percent of UNKNOWN MALWARE: THE VAST UNKNOWN | 11 142M 2014 83M 2013 34M 2012 18.5M 2011 142M 18M 2010 NEW MALWARE IN 2014 AND A 2009 71% INCREASE VERSUS 2013 12M 2.1 SOURCE: AV-Test How Bad Is it, Really? It’s bad. Without a recognized malware signature to to test the speed and catch rate at which malware catch, the typical preventive tools can’t do their job. could be blocked. To turn the known into unknown The new face of malware is fast and stealthy thanks to malware, they simply added a null to the end of obfuscation tools that help attacks slip past the most each PDF and DOC file (e.g. “echo’0000’>>1.doc). In sophisticated anti-malware solutions. For hackers, addition, an unused header section was modified on working with unknown malware has become the each executable file. Next, they opened and ran each go-to tool because it’s easy and it’s efficient to create file to validate that the original behavior remained variants from existing malware. In fact, it’s so easy unchanged. In a nutshell, by taking existing malware that even someone who is not technical could do it. and making slight modifications to it, you very quickly have something that won’t be recognized.