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Providing IT Security Services Not for Faint of Heart

 
 
By Michael Vizard
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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    1 - A Host of IT Security Challenges
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    A Host of IT Security Challenges

    Every minute a host accesses a malicious Website, and every 24 hours a host is infected by a bot. What's more, 33% of hosts are not running the latest software versions.
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    2 - Battling the Bots
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    Battling the Bots

    73% of organizations are infected by at least one bot; 49% have seven or more infected hosts. Sites infected by more than 22 infected hosts increased 200%. Every three minutes, a bot communicates with its command-and-control center.
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    3 - Length of Botnet Activity
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    Length of Botnet Activity

    On average, 77% of bots are active for more than four weeks.
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    4 - Malware Infestation
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    Malware Infestation

    There was a 144% increase in new types of malware from 2012 to 2013. Every 10 minutes an unknown piece of malware is being downloaded. On average, 2.2 pieces of malware hit an organization per hour.
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    5 - The Trouble With Files
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    The Trouble With Files

    33% of organizations have downloaded at least one file infected with unknown malware, of which 35% of those files are PDFs. 58% of organizations download a file loaded with malware every two hours or less.
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    6 - Email as a Malware Distribution Mechanism
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    Email as a Malware Distribution Mechanism

    Analysis of detections in 2013 showed that the majority of unknown malware was targeted at customers via email, most often embedded in attachments.
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    7 - Antivirus Software
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    Antivirus Software

    Less than 10% of antivirus software engines can detect unknown malware, and 18% of hosts studied did not have the latest signatures for antivirus solutions.
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    8 - Risky Behavior
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    Risky Behavior

    Every nine minutes, a high-risk application is being used, and every 49 minutes, sensitive data is being sent outside the organization. 63% of organizations, for example, have BitTorrent on their networks and 85% have Dropbox.
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    9 - Vulnerabilities Decline
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    Vulnerabilities Decline

    Databases show a decrease in the number of reported vulnerabilities to 5,191 for the year, a modest 2% year-over-year change from 2012, including a 9% drop in the number of "critical" vulnerabilities reported.
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    10 - Top Sources of IT Security Vulnerabilities
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    Top Sources of IT Security Vulnerabilities

    Oracle led all vendors in disclosures, with 496; followed by Cisco, with 433; IBM, with 394; and Microsoft, with 345.
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    11 - Endpoint Challenge
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    Endpoint Challenge

    14% of the endpoints analyzed did not have the latest Microsoft Windows service packs; 33% of all enterprise endpoints did not have the current versions for client software.
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    12 - Endpoint Vulnerabilities
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    Endpoint Vulnerabilities

    Of the enterprise endpoints analyzed, a full 38% were configured with local administrator permissions, enabling malware to run in the system (root) context when it executes.
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    13 - Servers Are the Primary Target
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    Servers Are the Primary Target

    Despite endpoint weaknesses, servers were still the primary target by a margin of 2:1.
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    14 - Top Attack Vectors
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    Top Attack Vectors

    Code execution tops the list, at 51%; followed by memory corruption, at 47%; and buffer overflow, at 36%.
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    15 - Attacks Grow in Sophistication
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    Attacks Grow in Sophistication

    Attackers were employing automated mechanisms for creating evasive, unknown malware on a large scale and now target organizations through global coordinated campaigns.
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    16 - Data Loss Still Rampant
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    Data Loss Still Rampant

    88% of organizations experienced at least one potential data loss incident.
 

Security is one of those opportunities that can cut both ways for an IT service provider. On one hand, demand is high for IT security services and there is much money to be made, but cleaning up after a client that has been compromised can be a costly endeavor that saps those profits. A new report from Check Point Software shows what the IT security channel is up against. A Check Point security research team analyzed a year of event data from more than 10,000 organizations to identify the critical malware and information security trends in 2013. Not only are more organizations infected by botnets and malware than ever, the sophistication of those attacks has increased considerably. In fact, the only way providers of IT security services can hope to respond to those levels of attacks is to invest more in security intelligence and automated remediation tools to create a closed-loop framework for managing IT security. The report shows that providing IT security services in this day and age is not for the faint of heart. Here's why.

 
This article was originally published on 2014-05-30