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Technology, Manufacturing, and Banking and Finance were Threat Actors’ Top Targeted Sectors in Asia Pacific in 2020: Ensign InfoSecurity Report

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The report also found that opportunistic threat actors sought to exploit people’s emotions and uncertainties during the pandemic by using Covid-19 topics to anchor  their phishing campaigns  

Qinthara Fasya | 14 June 2021

Photo by @kmuza on Unsplash

Singapore, 14 June 2021 − Ensign InfoSecurity (Ensign), Asia’s largest, pure-play  cybersecurity firm, today unveiled the findings of its Cyber Threat Landscape 2021 report, which found that the technology, manufacturing, and banking and finance industries were  the top targets in Asia Pacific for threat actors in 2020.  

Ensign’s latest report provides insights into the cyber risks and threats that surfaced across  four Asia Pacific markets – Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea – as the  pandemic dramatically reshaped the business landscape. It also explores cyber threat trends  that are emerging or will persist in 2021.  

Here are the key findings and insights from the report:  

Sector analysis: Threat actors targeted the technology sector to achieve economies  of scale  

Technology service providers were attractive targets for threat actors as many organisations  have engaged their services during the pandemic to ensure business continuity. A successful  cyber attack would allow the threat actors to obtain the credentials of these service providers’  clients, gaining them illicit access to a wide range of companies.  

Threat actors also targeted technology hardware and software vendors to breach and implant  malicious codes and components into the vendors’ product development systems. This enabled the perpetrators to rapidly develop zero-day exploits or create backdoors to  compromise the integrity of the products, allowing them to readily reach a larger pool of  targets. 

The threat actors’ focus on these sectors is a concern as organisations continue to invest in  digital technologies. According to IDC, digital transformation investments in Asia Pacific  including Japan and China (APJC) are poised to hit an estimated US$921 billion by 2024, compared to US$430 billion in 20191. Additionally, IDC estimates that by the end of 2023, 80%  of enterprises in Asia Pacific will put mechanisms in place that will enable them to shift to  cloud-centric infrastructure and applications twice as fast as before the pandemic2.  

“Technology suppliers and service providers will continue to be lucrative targets for threat  actors as organisations become increasingly reliant on digital technologies to support their  business operations and position themselves for the future. If threat actors can successfully  compromise just one of these companies’ systems, it can create a ripple effect that will impact  large groups of organisations across industries and geographies,” said Steven Ng, CIO and  EVP of Managed Security Services, Ensign. 

“Organisations need to recognise that as their cyber supply chain ecosystem expands and diversifies, they will also need to take additional steps to mitigate the elevated cyber risks that come with it. This includes increasing the organisation’s situational awareness by maintaining a complete inventory of the software, hardware, and information assets that are within their network, and those managed by their partners and vendors,” added Steven. 

Sector Analysis: Threat actors exploited Covid-19-induced disruptions and set their  sights on trade secrets 

Ensign highlighted that in 2020, threat actors attacked manufacturing companies with  ransomware. The perpetrators understood that these companies’ production capabilities were  already strained due to the pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions. This made  manufacturers more willing to pay the ransom to resume operations quickly and avoid further  production disruption. 

Cyber adversaries also targeted manufacturing companies to steal their trade secrets,  including industrial design, operational knowledge, as well as source materials and suppliers.  These types of information are particularly valuable as they can significantly undermine the  victims’ competitive edge while boosting the capabilities of their competitors.  

Sector Analysis: Threat actors intensified social engineering attacks and sought to  exploit remote working arrangements in the banking and finance sector As the country went into lockdown during the pandemic in 2020, there was increased usage  of online banking services. This led threat actors to ramp up their social engineering attacks  by faking banking websites and mobile applications to deceive bank customers into disclosing  their credentials.  

The report also revealed a greater increase in threat activities in this sector due to the  widespread adoption of remote working arrangements. More exploit attempts were targeting  remote solutions used in this sector compared to other industries. Threat actors were  particularly interested in getting credentials to gain access to banks and other financial  institutions. They could sell this information to ransomware operators and other sophisticated  threat groups that can find their way into these organisations’ core network.  

Emotet and TrickBot were Top Malware Detected Across Asia Pacific Ensign found that Emotet and TrickBot were the top malware observed across the region in  2020, constituting the bulk of Command & Control (C2)3threat activities detected, especially  in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore.  

Threat actors commonly use Emotet and TrickBot as they are versatile in design, allowing the  perpetrators to steal credentials, obtain information to move deeper into the infiltrated network,  and inject additional malicious payloads into the compromised digital environment. 

Threat actors frequently target technology service providers with these two malware families  due to their capabilities to download more malware into the infected systems. Both Emotet  and Trickbot were also observed to be used in phishing campaigns worldwide.  

Opportunistic Threat Actors Exploited Covid-19 in Phishing Campaigns The report revealed that threat actors sought to exploit individuals’ anxiety, fear, and curiosity  caused by the pandemic through phishing attacks. Ensign uncovered that 99% of the  phishing campaigns detected in Singapore in 2020 were centred on Covid-19 subjects, and  that the market’s Circuit Breaker period provided an opportune timeframe for threat actors to  launch phishing attacks. 

Similarly, in South Korea, most phishing emails also took advantage of the pandemic situation.  One of the top threat actor groups in Asia Pacific, Lazarus Group, also impersonated the South  Korean government to announce fake additional Covid-19 payouts and shopping vouchers in  their phishing campaign in June 2020. The attacks were targeted at 700,000 email addresses  they have illicitly obtained from previous breaches.  

Moreover, Ensign found that Covid-19-themed phishing attacks are more effective. In an  exercise Ensign conducted to test a client’s cybersecurity measures, 35% of the organisation’s  employees clicked on the simulated malicious link included in Ensign’s mock Covid-19-related  phishing email and provided their personal information. This is 10% higher than the average  result of past exercises, demonstrating the effectiveness of customised, well-timed phishing  campaigns.  

About Ensign InfoSecurity 

Ensign InfoSecurity is the largest, pure-play end-to-end cybersecurity service provider in Asia.  Headquartered in Singapore, Ensign offers bespoke solutions and services to address their clients’  cybersecurity needs. Their core competencies are in the provision of cybersecurity advisory and assurance services, architecture design and systems integration services, and managed security services for advanced threat detection, threat hunting, and incident response. Underpinning these competencies is in-house research and development in cybersecurity. Ensign has two decades of proven track record as a trusted and relevant service provider, serving clients from the public and private sectors in the Asia Pacific region. 


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