7 Layers: Fortinet Sees Nation States Teaming Up With Cybercriminals

Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs recently released its predictions for 2023, highlighting the trend of advanced persistent cybercrime enabling a new wave of destructive attacks at scale, fuelled by cybercrime as a service. In this episode of the 7 Layers, Derek Manky, chief security strategist and VP of global threat intelligence at FortiGuard Labs, sat down with SDxCentral editor Nancy Liu to discuss security trends. Manky and the team at the labs have seen cyberattacks become more destructive in nature this year, as well as the emergence of reconnaissance-as-a-service. Ransom-as-a-service in particular involves more destructive attacks, “so it’s becoming more bold,” he said, adding that “reconnaissance-as-a-service … we have not really seen this yet, but it’s something I expect to see in 2023.” The labs also saw cybercrime converging with advanced persistent threat methods in 2022. Manky explained that advanced persistent cybercrime combines advanced persistent threat (APT), which has traditionally been used by nation-states to target critical infrastructure, with cybercrime that is financially motivated. “We’re seeing a PTS of nation-state groups now teaming up with cybercriminal groups,” Manky said. “So In the private sector, I see them now worried about APT they were not before because APT groups teaming up with cybercrime groups, those destructive targeted threats are now hitting the private sector. It’s the same thing on the public sector side. They typically have only been worried about APT, but now they are also expanding their focus to cybercrime because it’s shared infrastructure and those groups are working together and the attacks are becoming highly targeted.” “So in the private sector, I see them now worried about APT that they weren’t before because APT groups are teaming up with cybercriminal groups, these destructive targeted threats are now hitting the private sector. It’s the same on the public sector side. They used to just worry about APT, but now they’re widening their focus to cybercrime because it’s a shared infrastructure and these groups are working together and the attacks are becoming very targeted”. Advanced persistent cybercrime “is our single biggest threat to expect in 2023 and beyond,” he added. To mitigate these threats, Manky is encouraging organizations to use solutions and principles such as artificial intelligence, security-as-a-service, secure access service edge (SASE), zero trust, and zero-trust networks access (ZTNA). “Cybercriminals are using artificial intelligence, so we need to on the defensive side do that to cybersecurity teams, so leveraging automation, orchestration, AI power, and security operations is a big effective measure that can go a long way without having to hire headcount and increase your opex,” he said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices