Monday Morning Impact – December 16

Darktrace has revealed a surge in retail cyber-attacks, according to research developed by the UK-based cybersecurity vendor.

Analysis from Darktrace’s threat intelligence team using data from across the Darktrace customer fleet shows that during Black Friday week (25th to 29th November 2024) attempted Christmas-themed phishing attacks leapt 327% around the world, while Black Friday themed phishing attacks jumped 692%.

The United States retail sector faced an especially aggressive wave of cyber threats, with phishing attacks mimicking major brands, such as Walmart, Target, and Best Buy.

“The festive shopping season creates a perfect storm for cyber criminals,” says Nathaniel Jones, VP of Threat Research at Darktrace. “Consumers are primed to expect floods of retail deals, while retailers are processing tremendous transaction volumes at speed. This combination makes spotting suspicious patterns more challenging than at any other part of the year. Bad actors taking advantage of that with brand impersonation is nothing new, but the rapidly growing volume of those attacks makes them a real worry. Both consumers and brands need to be increasingly alert to potential scams, but we can all take heart that big name retailers have some of the most sophisticated protections possible to help safeguard their customers, and technologies like AI cybersecurity, that spot spoofs and attacks that humans wouldn’t, are catching and stopping more of these attacks than ever before.”

Darktrace’s findings demonstrate that the most effective attacks are multi-stage: brand impersonation emails lead unsuspecting shoppers directly to websites that look like the retailer but harvest login or payment details, creating a seamless deception that hands personal and financial data directly to attackers.

Channel Impact^®
Partners can assist their clients in setting up alerts to track mentions of the client’s brand and warn of counterfeit websites and fraudulent domains. Several other brand and payment protection tools can also be implemented.

GTT Communications, an Arlington, Virginia-based networking and security-as-a-service provider, has unveiled new research highlighting the growing reliance on SD-WAN, SASE, and SSE as essential defenses against cybersecurity threats.

According to the report entitled, “Trends and Solutions for a More Secure Perimeter,” undetected vulnerabilities, ransomware, data theft and network interruptions are the most pressing concerns for IT leaders, with only a 3 percentage points difference in response rates ranging from 46% to 43%. In line with the evolving integration of security solutions with advanced networking, the study found that to combat these threats, 35% of enterprises have implemented a SASE framework while 42% have deployed SSE.

“While any security incident can lead to reputational damage and financial loss through ransoms, downtime and more, undetected vulnerabilities can be particularly damaging because they allow threats to persist undetected, potentially leading to the silent exploitation of networks over an extended period,” said Tom Major, Senior Vice President, Product Management and Technology, GTT. “Once inside, a hacker can steal sensitive data, exfiltrate intellectual property, disrupt operations, plant further malware and use the compromised network to launch attacks on others — all without being detected. Organizations that deploy a layered framework like SASE can bring about the comprehensive shift to a zero-trust corporate security posture, enabling employees to maintain simple and secure access to data and applications anywhere in the world.”

The majority of those surveyed operate with integration between security and networking teams when it comes to managing their SD-WAN, SASE and SSE solutions. Where each solution type has been deployed, about two-thirds of security and networking teams work together to manage it, with a more or less even split among the remainder having one or the other team running it exclusively.

The survey involved 314 IT, infrastructure, networking, security and other managers (or higher) around the world across retail, hospitality, manufacturing, food and beverage, healthcare, financial services, and tech. Each respondent represents at least five enterprise network locations and annual revenues of $200 million or more.

Channel Impact^®
Vulnerabilities, ransomware, and data theft top the list of cybersecurity concerns as enterprises move toward unifying networking and security teams and solutions. Channel partners are in prime position to help address those concerns.