"Netskope Report Finds Cloud-Delivered Malware Increased 68% in Q2"
Netskope recently released the fifth edition of its Cloud and Threat Report covering the cloud data risks, threats, and trends they see throughout the quarter. The report noted that cloud storage apps account for more than 66% of cloud malware delivery. In Q2 2021, 43% of all malware downloads were malicious Office docs, compared to just 20% at the beginning of 2020. The researchers stated that this increase comes even after the Emotet takedown, indicating that other groups observed the success of the Emotet crew and have adopted similar techniques. The researchers also found that collaboration apps and development tools account for the next largest percentage, as attackers abuse popular chat apps and code repositories to deliver malware. In total, Netskope detected and blocked malware downloads originating from 290 distinct cloud apps in the first half of 2021. The researchers explained that cybercriminals deliver malware through cloud apps to bypass blocklists and take advantage of any app-specific allow lists. Cloud service providers generally remove most malware immediately, but some attackers have found ways to do significant damage in the short time they spend undetected in a system. The researchers also found that about 35% of all workloads are exposed to the public internet within AWS, Azure, and GCP, with public IP addresses that are reachable from anywhere on the internet. The researchers stated that RDP servers have become a popular infiltration vector for attackers and were exposed in 8.3% of workloads. The average company with anywhere between 500 and 2,000 employees now deploys 805 separate apps and cloud services, with 97% of those being unmanaged and often freely adopted by business units and users, the researchers stated. During the report, the researchers pointed out that the rapid adoption of enterprise cloud apps has continued into 2021, with data showing adoption is up 22% for the first half of the year.
ZDNet reports: "Netskope Report Finds Cloud-Delivered Malware Increased 68% in Q2"