{"id":77766,"date":"2019-03-14T17:12:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T22:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=77766"},"modified":"2019-03-14T17:35:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T22:35:10","slug":"high-tech-high-threat-new-cyberattacks-such-as-cryptojacking-make-past-risks-kids-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/high-tech-high-threat-new-cyberattacks-such-as-cryptojacking-make-past-risks-kids-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"New cyberattacks such as cryptojacking make past risks kids\u2019 stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Xieyang Jessica Qiao<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Blockchain, AI, IoT and a storm of new technologies are leading to greater operational efficiency and consumer opportunities, while triggering an increasing range of cyberattacks.<\/p>\n

In the age of digital transformation, the best defense for users is to understand past breaches in order to maintain constant vigilance for future threats.<\/p>\n

AI applications have made inroads in robotic process automation that allows users in all professions to extract key metadata from their text, including entities, relations, concepts and sentiments. This helps lawyers run a smarter practice, for instance.<\/p>\n

\u201cProcess automation can extract basic entities from your contracts\u2019 metadata across different repositories and move that metadata into a contract life cycle management system,\u201d said Andrew Pery, consultant of ABBYY, a software company that offers AI-based solutions. \u201cSo you have a single point of resources from which you can manage the contract life cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

More advanced instances of process automation focus on cognitive analytics. By using the\u00a0neural network, natural language processing and semantic analysis, AI extracts meaning from legal documents and may even predict the outcome of a court case.<\/p>\n

While high technology generates excited chatter with its wide-ranging applications, it also creates new security incidents that have become increasingly complex. Recent years saw the growth of malware attacks targeting AI-powered and IoT devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that is connected to the internet is potentially susceptible to data breaches, and getting attached to the internet can become in essence a risk factor,\u201d said Tomas Suros, chief solutions architect of AbacusNext, a software and private cloud services provider. \u201cWe’ve seen attacks specific to those AI-powered or IoT devices. Malware may propagate through Alexa, Siri or anything that can be used to automate activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suros said 60 percent of small- and medium-sized businesses had been infected or had a data breach at one point. Within six months, 60 percent of them went out of business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scope of malware attacks is increasing,\u201d Suros said. \u201cThe damage to your business reputation, your inability to restore and the cost associated with recovery are devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the sophistication of cyber crimes increases, its paradigm also shifts. A hacker breaks into your network to steal information or creates a virus to corrupt your network are now \u201cancient\u201d models of cyberattacks. The new culprit is no longer smash-and-dash.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet’s say somebody inadvertently clicks on a link in an email,\u201d Suros said. \u201cThe malware attack may not happen immediately. Instead, a bot is dropped on your network. It does password sniffing and siphons off that information in a way that is not immediately apparent. But the bot can penetrate your network and continue to do damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also a nefarious nature to the way these innovative attacks are initiated, as they spike immediately before and after Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to find you in a weak moment when you’re busy or distracted and all it takes is one weak point in your network to initiate a deadly infection,\u201d Suros said.<\/p>\n

One type of malware is Trojan, which purports to be a legitimate software such as a browser or an add-on. When you install the software, however, Trojan drops malware on your system.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the infection starts, Trojan can identify an encrypted network drive even a couple of layers deep,\u201d Suros said. \u201cIf you have data drives that create backups, Trojan can come in to create an infection and find those drives. Before initiating the attack, it actually has a map. This allows Trojan to hide its traps and potentially remove your ability to restore your backups of that data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ransomware, a subset of malware programmed to encrypt data and block access to the computer network until money is paid, ramped up last year and is likely to rise even more in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes in many shapes and sizes,\u201d Suros said. \u201cOne of the newer variants is described as artisanal, meaning it’s designed to know its targets, what systems they’re using, and then deploy itself in ways that fool individuals by giving them information that seems familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samsam, the ransomware used in targeted attacks, is responsible for the 2018 Atlanta cyberattack when one-third of the 424 software programs used by the city were thrown offline or partially disabled.<\/p>\n

\u201cSamsam doesn\u2019t immediately start an attack,\u201d Suros said. \u201cIt starts a scheme by recognizing the system and looking for vulnerabilities – the shortest path to a disruptive attack. It may install a crypto miner or a keystroke logger, which keeps records of every keystroke and sends them off as a file. People can deconstruct that and find your password.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s cryptojacking – an emerging form of ransomware that may hide on your network to gain unauthorized use of your computer to mine cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not encrypting your data or preventing you from using the system,\u201d Suros said. \u201cBut it uses your resources, your central processing unit (CPU) cycles, your storage and your internet to create cryptocurrencies and send that to someone else who collects them.\u201d<\/p>\n

While cryptojacking malware doesn\u2019t take all your data, it steals your resources, slows down your system and limits your security shields.<\/p>\n

Last year also saw an upward trend in spear phishing and whaling attacks. While whaling attack is a more specific type of spear phishing that targets high-level executives, both are social engineering attacks that use psychological manipulation to trick users into revealing sensitive information.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpear phishing can identify your organization,\u201d Suros said. \u201cIt may appear to come from HR, requesting you to update your password. You may receive an email from the IT department, asking you to do something and you will probably do it- thinking that the cause is to improve your technology and security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suros said attacks cost businesses more than $75 billion per year- and it\u2019s not just ransom\u00a0that is paid. If individuals refuse to pay ransoms, they no longer have access to their servers or workstations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u00a0are out of business until they can restore and recover,\u201d Suros said. \u201cThere are 1.5 million phishing sites being created each month. This has become an industry and it will continue to grow this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Recent years saw an increasing amount of advanced cyberattacks worldwide. (Miria Grunick\/Flickr<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Xieyang Jessica Qiao Medill Reports Blockchain, AI, IoT and a storm of new technologies are leading to greater operational efficiency and consumer opportunities, while triggering an increasing range of cyberattacks. In the age of digital transformation, the best defense for users is to understand past breaches in order to maintain constant vigilance for future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":554,"featured_media":77816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,452,27,28,29,2951,30,675,4559],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-77766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-beyond-chicago","category-business","category-general-interest","category-health-and-science","category-politicsnational-security","category-public-affairs","category-social-justice","category-winter-2019","tag-promo"],"yoast_head":"\nNew cyberattacks such as cryptojacking make past risks kids\u2019 stuff - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/high-tech-high-threat-new-cyberattacks-such-as-cryptojacking-make-past-risks-kids-stuff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New cyberattacks such as cryptojacking make past risks kids\u2019 stuff - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Xieyang Jessica Qiao Medill Reports Blockchain, AI, IoT and a storm of new technologies are leading to greater operational efficiency and consumer opportunities, while triggering an increasing range of cyberattacks. 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