A group of security experts from Kaspersky has just made predictions about the cyber situation in Southeast Asia in 2022.
In order to provide organizations and individuals with good orientations against online threats and ensure the recovery phase of countries in Southeast Asia, experts from the Global Research & Analysis Group Kaspersky Demand (GReAT) have released an analysis, with the top four trends to watch out for in 2022.
Cryptocurrencies, NFT top the risk group
Most notably, the researchers raised concerns about a larger wave of attacks on crypto businesses.
Currently, countries in Southeast Asia are said to be leading in terms of NFT ownership (non-fungible token – non-fungible asset, such as the Philippines at the top position (32%). , followed by Thailand (26.2%), Malaysia (23.9%), Vietnam (17.4%), and Singapore (6.8%). This is a completely new sector, hence the group of hackers will target and attack strongly here.
In addition, the GReAT team also believes that the attacks will directly target the employees of startups and cryptocurrency exchanges through sophisticated techniques, software mining, even vendors. fake level. In addition, hackers can also organize mass attacks through supply chain software or related components such as third-party code libraries.
Not only affecting the global cryptocurrency market but these attacks are also expected to drag on the stock prices of individual companies, as attackers make money through illegal trading on the stock market. stock.
Data leaks and “non-tech” scams on the rise
In the past year, data leaks happened very often on large scale. These incidents are mostly recorded on a forum that specializes in selling data of hackers.
Specifically, the Thai health system has been repeatedly criticized for data leaks, affecting hundreds of thousands of patients. In addition, a security company that is said to be a leading Vietnamese company was also sold the source code of “core technology” of anti-virus software, infiltrated the internal chat system, and publicly posted sensitive information. of nearly 200 customers.
Besides, “non-technological” scams are also warned by the expert group that they will tend to continue to increase in the next few years.
Explaining this, Kaspersky said that cyberspace is strictly protected and it is almost impossible to exploit the vulnerability for direct attack, so hackers tend to switch to exploit from “factors”. people” with fraudulent behavior that requires user action (accessing bad links, sending personal information through “disguised recruitment”) is inevitable.
The trend of targeted ransomware attacks decreases
Thanks to strong international cooperation and multiple task forces tracking ransomware gangs, Kaspersky experts believe that targeted ransomware attacks will decrease in 2022.
However, the widely available hosting services offered by countries like Singapore and Malaysia, data center services, and infrastructure can still be abused by ransomware.
The GReAT Kaspersky team is deeply concerned that the majority of victims cannot identify the attackers or figure out how they were compromised, and warn that data attacks will continue to increase in the future. the year 2022.