Page 46 - Cyber Defense eMagazine for September 2020

State-sponsored hackers have found a preference for corporate espionage, the exfiltration of intellectual
property to narrow the technological gap with competing nations, the stealing of PII and CII data for
financial gain, and defaming adversaries to further socio-political agendas.

Hackers have explored new attack surfaces as industry and country IT systems have remained
vulnerable with poorly configured and outdated programs and applications. Weak applications or
networks become a test field for hackers as they carry out advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks, first
establishing long-term connections, then understanding the architecture of the targeted organization, and
finally starting to mine sensitive data such as PII, official documents, agreements, compliance data, etc.
The Anthem APT attack, which compromised almost 80 million customer PII data, is a popular example
of such an attack.

It is now of utmost importance for governments and businesses to adopt a predictive approach to
protecting their reputation, ensuring business continuity and protecting national interests. However, this
can only be achieved by going deep into the hacker trenches to gain real-time cyber threat visibility. To
this end, we need a platform that can discover evolving threats, decode and segregate valuable cyber
threat insights from the vast amount of data available.

In order to beat hackers in their own game, cyber intelligence is needed for businesses to take action
against unseen threats. Having a platform that allows one to predict a cyberattack is needed more than
ever before. And there's one that fits the bill – CYFIRM's DeCYFIR.

Using DeCYFIR, CYFIRMA researchers analyzed data sources across deep / dark web, hacker forums
and closed communities, and uncovered the following cyber-war threat scenarios.

• Trade wars fueling cybercrime and cyber warfare

The ongoing trade war between two of the world's largest economies – the US and China – has already
created a geopolitical strain. The US has long accused China of unfair trade and theft of intellectual
property. The race for political and technological supremacy has now fueled cyber warfare.

• Geopolitical conflicts between neighboring countries

Relations between Japan and South Korea, China and India, China and Australia have deteriorated
rapidly over wartime issues and bilateral trade differences.

War hysteria, historical differences, and geopolitical supremacy will lead state-sponsored hackers to push
their cyberattack threshold to a limit. Social hacktivists, political parties and large corporations will be
drawn to cybercrime as a means of achieving business and political objectives, fueling the expansion of
the hackers-for-hire economy.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2020 Edition 46
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