Outsourcing espionage: A new era in cyber crime

By Kirsten Doyle for ITWeb
Monday, November 16, 2020

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The backdoor comes either wrapped up in a PowerSploit reflective loader, or in the form of a custom-built dropper that uses a simple virtual machine (VM) mechanism to decode and inject the payload.

Hefty price tags

Ilia Kolochenko, founder & CEO of Web security company ImmuniWeb, says these days, there is a considerably higher number of highly skilled cyber mercenaries.

“The majority of them are simply prudent, never advertise their hacker-for-hire services, and do most of their business via trusted intermediaries with a well-thought vetting process for all new clients.”

According to him, these groups usually only consider projects starting with a six-digit price tag.

“They have formidable technical skills and virtually unlimited resources, and are capable of invisibly penetrating large corporate or governmental networks without triggering an alarm. Most of these groups have access to skilled lawyers and financial advisors to better shape strategy and hinder eventual investigation.”

Kolochenko says law enforcement agencies, even those in the wealthiest Western nations, are too underfunded and understaffed to adequately respond to this relatively new phenomenon. During the COVID-19 pandemic, cyber criminals enjoyed a wide range of low-hanging fruits given how many companies had poorly protected WFH infrastructure, or unprotected third parties that had uncontrolled access to their sensitive data.

“Stress and burnout among cyber security professionals just exacerbates this spiralling situation.” Read Full Article