Cyber weather in April: threat of ransomware attacks in the air
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The Finnish cyber weather in April was marred by already familiar Office 365 credential phishing and related scams. Internationally, the ‘Big Game Hunting’ phenomenon, which means ransomware attacks targeted at large organisations, covered the sky with grey clouds.
Phishing for credentials and using the stolen credentials shortly afterwards is the new normal
Office 365 phishing campaigns and using the stolen credentials immediately, for example, in CEO frauds are still common. To address this, we published an extensive guide for protection against Office 365 phishing in April. The guide has raised a lot of interest and it is available on our website.
Big Game Hunting is a worldwide phenomenon
Cybercriminal groups are increasingly looking for large organisations for targets. By preventing the organisation’s operations, the criminals try to demand their target large ransom payments.
In April, the attack technique called ‘Big Game Hunting’ became more frequent internationally but we did not receive any reports about such cases in Finland. Big Game Hunting appears to be a part of a large-scale phenomenon of a more professionalised use of ransomware.
Only few DoS attacks
The DoS attack situation in April was calm. Even though the volumes of the attacks have increased, the mitigation techniques have improved and they are successful in preventing the consequences of the attacks.