According to HP Research, 29% of cyber threats are previously unknown

June 20, 2021 Tita Jane 0 Comments cyber threats, HP Research, HP Sure Click, malware

HP Inc. released its new Quarterly Threat Insights Report, providing analysis of real-world attacks against customers worldwide. The report found that 29% of malware captured was previously unknown due to the widespread use of packers and obfuscation techniques by attackers seeking to evade detection. 88% of malware was delivered by email into users’ inboxes, in many cases having bypassed gateway filters. It took 8.8 days, on average, for threats to become known by hash to antivirus engines.

The report provides a unique glimpse into the behavior of malware in the wild as observed using HP Sure Click, a feature on HP laptops that secures your computer when you browse the Internet or view untrusted documents. Unlike other endpoint security tools, which aim to prevent or intervene in an attack, HP Sure Click lets malware run, tricking malware into executing, while capturing a full infection chain within isolated, micro-virtual machines. This hardware-enforced approach to security renders malware harmless and keeps customers safe.

According to Dr. Ian Pratt, Global Head of Security for Personal Systems at HP Inc., “This report highlights the deficiencies in traditional defenses that rely on detection to block malware”. He added that “Attackers have repeatedly found new ways to bypass traditional detection-based tools, making it more important than ever for organizations to build zero-trust design principles into their security architecture.”

Here are some of the threats noted by HP Sure Click (This data was gathered within HP customer Sure Click virtual-machines from October-December 2020):

Web Browser exploits leading to FickerStealer: A malware campaign that relied on misspelled domains of popular instant messaging services. Visitors were redirected to RigEK landing pages that attempted to exploit web browser and plugin vulnerabilities to infect visitors’ PCs with information-stealing malware called FickerStealer.
Delivery-themed lures tempting users into letting the remote access Trojans (RATs) in: A new Office malware builder called APOMacroSploit was used to target victims in delivery-themed spam campaigns, tricking them into opening weaponized XLS attachments, ultimately leading to the BitRAT remote access Trojan being deployed on their computers.
The return of ZLoader: An increase in ZLoader banking Trojan activity, using a combination of techniques – including Word documents masquerading as pharmaceutical invoices that run malicious macros only after the document has been closed.
The art of misdirection through DOSfuscation: Emotet’s final burst of activity before its takedown in January 2021 saw its operators modify the downloader using DOSfuscation techniques to make its obfuscation more complex. The downloader also generated an error message when opened, helping to avoid suspicion from users when the malicious documents didn’t behave as expected.
Email thread hijacking of government targets: HP Sure Click stopped email thread hijacking attacks against government organizations in Central America, where stolen email data was used to craft convincing phishing lures to distribute Emotet.

Other key findings in the report include:

Trojans made up 66% of malware samples analyzed, driven largely by malicious spam campaigns distributing Dridex malware, which a recent HP blog flagged as having increased in prevalence by 239%. Dridex campaigns are typically used by attackers to deploy ransomware. These attackers, once they gain access to your system, can use this access to scrape credentials, move laterally between systems, exfiltrate data, or sell their access to other cybercriminals.
88% of malware detected was delivered via email – with the most common lures being fake invoice attachments – while web downloads were responsible for the remaining 12%.
The most common type of malicious attachments were: documents (31%), archive files (28%), spreadsheets (19%) and executable files (17%).
Malicious executables rose by 12%, with CVE-2017-11882 – a memory corruption flaw in Microsoft Office’s Equation Editor – accounting for nearly three-quarters of the exploits isolated by HP Sure Click.
A 12% growth in malware that exploits CVE-2017-0199, which is commonly used to run malicious scripts to deploy malware when a user opens an Office document.

The problem with these malware variants, according to Pratt, is that the hackers have a few days’ headstart and are able to infect machines before detection tools catch up. He says that the best cyber defense is to isolate risks on the endpoint through micro-visualization. Pratt says “This kind of hardware-enforced isolation removes the opportunity for malware to cause harm to the host PC – even from novel malware – because it does not rely on a detect-to-protect security model. By having security built-in at the hardware level, endpoint devices can help to defend users and recover from attacks
automatically, improving business resiliency…”

As more people remain on work-from-home mode or hybrid work mode, it is important to prioritize data security.

For more information on HP computers for your work-from-home and remote work requirements, please visit the official HP flagship store at Lazada and Shopee or visit HP.com.