May 17, 2018 By Douglas Bonderud 2 min read

Data from the first quarter of 2018 revealed that the cybersecurity threats landscape is changing. As noted by CSO Online, cryptojacking continues to gain ground: In the first quarter of 2018, 28 percent of companies reported crypto-mining malware, up from just 13 percent in Q4 2017.

According to Nasdaq, meanwhile, ransomware remains a critical threat. BlackRuby, SamSam and GandCrab all made an impact over the last three months, with GandCrab’s ransom demand marking the first time malicious actors asked for payment in Dash digital currency.

But there’s another story here: The growing division (and multiplication) of the zero-day market.

The Attack Surface Expands

As Computer Weekly reported, the total number of malware families grew by 25 percent last quarter while unique variants saw a 19 percent boost. In addition, cybercriminals are now taking the time to conduct reconnaissance on potential targets and leverage automation to maximize attack impact. The Nasdaq piece pointed to the Olympic Destroyer malware, which was specifically designed to interfere with the global sporting event in Pyeongchang this year.

Corporate attack surfaces are also expanding thanks to the uptake of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Three of the top 20 reported cybersecurity threats last quarter targeted these devices. Although 60 percent of all web traffic is now encrypted, this “represents a real challenge for traditional security technology that has no way of filtering encrypted traffic.” So it’s no surprise that zero-day threats haven’t received as much attention, even as the market for discovery and distribution evolves.

No Zero-Sum Game

According to Fortinet’s “Threat Landscape Report Q1 2018,” the zero-day market is maturing. While there were 214 zero-day threats discovered in all of 2017, 45 were found in Q1 2018 alone, affecting everything from popular content management systems (CMSs) to device makers and industry-leading operating system (OS) developers. Division of the market by “hat” — white-, gray- and black-hat IT experts — has produced three distinct zero-day streams:

  • White hat — This market supports bug bounty programs, which pay law-abiding security professionals to find new vulnerabilities, but secure disclosure and patching of these exploits is critical to limit accidental exposure.
  • Grey hatHere, zero-day “brokers” purchase bugs for customers. The caveat is that these customers are typically anonymous. The Fortinet report noted that it’s “possible that the buyer is a hostile nation-state, cybercriminal enterprise or otherwise maliciously inclined.”
  • Black hatFor black-hat actors, the goal is to both find and create new zero-day exploits for profit, and threat researchers have confirmed that “the creation and distribution of zero days by cybercriminals is on the rise.”

This triple-threat market adds up to a kind of multiplicative effect: Companies concerned about zero-day bugs invest more money into white-hat programs to find and eliminate them, while for-profit gray- and black-hat actors look to discover and create new bugs to continue the cycle.

Transformative Cybersecurity Threats

The Fortinet report emphasized that the rise of malware innovation, IoT risks, cryptojacking and zero-day threats “points to the continued transformation of cybercrime.” Specifically, companies need to do the math on zero-day exploits — division of outcomes, combined with multiplying interest, makes this a market to watch in 2018.

More from

Cyberattack on American Water: A warning to critical infrastructure

3 min read - American Water, the largest publicly traded United States water and wastewater utility, recently experienced a cybersecurity incident that forced the company to disconnect key systems, including its customer billing platform. As the company’s investigation continues, there are growing concerns about the vulnerabilities that persist in the water sector, which has increasingly become a target for cyberattacks. The breach is a stark reminder of the critical infrastructure risks that have long plagued the industry. While the water utility has confirmed that…

What’s behind unchecked CVE proliferation, and what to do about it

4 min read - The volume of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) has reached staggering levels, placing immense pressure on organizations' cyber defenses. According to SecurityScorecard, there were 29,000 vulnerabilities recorded in 2023, and by mid-2024, nearly 27,500 had already been identified.Meanwhile, Coalition's 2024 Cyber Threat Index forecasts that the total number of CVEs for 2024 will hit 34,888—a 25% increase compared to the previous year. This upward trend presents a significant challenge for organizations trying to manage vulnerabilities and mitigate potential exploits.What’s behind…

Quishing: A growing threat hiding in plain sight

4 min read - Our mobile devices go everywhere we go, and we can use them for almost anything. For businesses, the accessibility of mobile devices has also made it easier to create more interactive ways to introduce new products and services while improving user experiences across different industries. Quick-response (QR) codes are a good example of this in action and help mobile devices quickly navigate to web pages or install new software by simply scanning an image.However, legitimate organizations aren’t the only ones…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today