Cloud application security
In the report you just submitted Netskope the continuing growth of malware and other payloads delivered by cloud applications has been revealed. This research identifies the main trends in attacker activities in the cloud and also makes a comparison to 2020. One of the trends seen is that attackers are becoming more successful in delivering malware payload to their victims.
The report found that more than two-thirds of malware downloads came from cloud apps in 2021. On the other hand, it was identified Google Drive as the app with the most malware downloads. The report also provided a number of interesting discoveries:
- The increase in malicious Office documents from 19% to 37% of all malware downloads. This indicates an increase in the security risks of cloud applications.
- More than half of all managed cloud application instances are subject to credential attacks.
Our way of working is changing, hybrid work is here to stay. This makes the workforce more distributed and pushes the boundaries of network and data security. So companies must apply modern security controls. One that they can apply is Security Service Edge (SSE)-driven architectures, to allow users the freedom to move securely around the cloud. You may be interested in how to turn your computer into a private cloud.
malware
A very relevant fact is that malware delivered by cloud apps is higher than that from websites. In that regard we have been able to see that in 2021, malware downloads originating from cloud applications increased to 66% compared to 46% at the beginning of 2020. On the other hand, Google Drive has replaced in the first place Microsoft OneDrive as the application with the highest number of malware downloads.
Also in the Netskope report it has been seen as the malware that has arrived via Microsoft Office has almost doubled from 2020 to 2021. Thus, we have seen how malicious Office documents have increased to 37% of all malware downloads at the end of 2021. If we compare it with the data from the beginning of 2020, the percentage was 19%. In that regard, cybercriminals continue to use Office documents as weapons to gain an initial foothold to attack their target systems.
Cloud apps and data breach
A worrying fact is that More than half of managed cloud applications are targeted by credential attacks and that the corporate data exfiltration is on the rise. Thus, one in seven workers takes the data with them when they leave their company. In addition, between 2020 and 2021, an average of 29% of workers who left the organization downloaded more company files. Additionally, 15% of users uploaded more files to their personal apps in the last 30 days.
According to Raymond Canzanese, the growing popularity of cloud applications has led to attackers trying to gain access to victims’ cloud applications. He further warns of the dangers of these attackers abusing cloud apps to deliver malware and also from insiders using cloud apps for data exfiltration. Finally, you may be interested in some tips so that the data you store in the cloud is not stolen.
