Derek Manky
With the coronavirus pandemic breaking out, and corporate workforces going remote, “uncertainty is a key word” for 2020, Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs, said.
The uncertain times led to an outpouring of cybercriminal activity in the first half of 2020 – with researchers with FortiGuard Labs tracking over 600 campaigns a day in March – as attackers leveraged high emotions around the pandemic as hooks for phishing attacks. The campaigns, which utilized traditional malware and ransomware families, coupled with “advanced” social engineering lures, showed the security industry that “whenever there’s uncertainty, opportunity knocks for attackers,” said Manky.
In this week’s Threatpost podcast, Manky talks about the biggest lessons learned so far from 2020, including the most dire threats to date – such as sophisticated social engineering lures, Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerabilities and targeted ransomware attacks.