EDITOR’S QUESTION
“
CYBERCRIMINALS
ARE NOT
SHOWING
ANY SIGNS OF
STOPPING AND
ATTACKS WILL
CONTINUE TO
EVOLVE.
T
he past year has been extremely
eventful in terms of the digital
threats faced by financial institutions:
cybercrime groups have used new infiltration
techniques, and the geography of attacks
has become more extensive.
According to the KSN statistics by Kaspersky
Lab, the META region witnessed 17%
increase in banking malware attacks to reach
almost half a million attacks in 2018.
Looking specifically at Kuwait, the number of
ransomware incidents increased sevenfold
in 2018 – the country is a big target for such
cyberattacks.
Other notable statistics for Kuwait include:
• +200% increase of phishing attacks
in 2018
• –1,26% decrease of malware (all
families) attacks in 2018
• +625% increase of ransomware attacks
in 2018
• +4% increase of banking trojans attacks
in 2018
32
INTELLIGENTCIO
Cryptocurrencies have also become an
established part of many people’s lives, and
a more attractive target for cybercriminals
across the world, which resulted in a
rapid increase in malicious mining of
cryptocurrencies. Kaspersky Lab recorded a
fourfold increase in cryptomining attacks in
the META region from 3.5 million in 2017 to
13 million in 2018.
The META region is becoming more
appealing to cybercriminals, with financial
and malicious cryptomining attacks taking
centre stage.
We discovered six new ATM malware families
in 2018. On the other hand, the illegal
mining of cryptocurrencies has increased
dramatically to overtake the main threat of
the last few years: ransomware.
We believe the reason behind this is that
mining is silent and causes less impact than
ransomware, making it less noticeable.
Cybercriminals are not showing any signs of
stopping and attacks will continue to evolve.
Here are some predictions by Kaspersky Lab
experts on how these trends could affect our
lives in the coming year:
Financial cyberthreats
• 2019 could see the first attacks
through the theft and use of
biometric data.
Biometric systems for user identification
and authentication are being gradually
implemented by various financial
institutions. Several major leaks of
biometric data have already occurred.
These two facts lay the foundation
for the first POC (proof-of-concept)
attacks on financial services using leaked
biometric data.
• Attacks on mobile banking for
business users.
Mobile applications for business are
gaining popularity, which is likely to lead
to the first attacks on their users. There
are enough tools for this, and the possible
losses that businesses incur would be
much higher than the losses incurred
when individuals are attacked.
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