Monday Morning Impact – September 8

Report: Cyber Adversaries Are Exploiting the Global Pandemic at Enormous Scale

Fortinet, a Sunnyvale, California-based cybersecurity vendor, has announced the findings of its latest semiannual FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report.

Data from the first half of 2020 demonstrates the dramatic scale at which cybercriminals and nation-state actors leveraged a global pandemic as an opportunity to implement a variety of cyberattacks around the world. The pandemic enabled waves of attacks targeting the fear and uncertainty in current events as well as the sudden abundance of remote workers outside the corporate network, which quickly expanded the digital attack surface overnight. Attacks included phishing and business email compromise schemes, nation-state-backed campaigns and ransomware attacks.

The increase in remote work created a dramatic inversion of corporate networks almost overnight, which cyber adversaries immediately started to leverage as an opportunity. In the first half of 2020, exploit attempts against several consumer-grade routers and IoT devices were at the top of the list for IPS detections. In addition, Mirai and Gh0st dominated the most prevalent botnet detections, driven by an apparent growing interest of attackers targeting old and new vulnerabilities in IoT products. These trends are noteworthy because it demonstrates how the network perimeter has extended to the home with cybercriminals seeking to gain a foothold in enterprise networks by exploiting devices that remote workers might use to connect to their organizations’ networks.

Web-based malware used in phishing campaigns and other scams outranked the more traditional email delivery vector earlier this year.

“The dramatic scale and rapid evolution of attack methods demonstrate the nimbleness of adversaries to quickly shift their strategies to maximize the current events centered around the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe,” said Derek Manky, Chief of Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances at FortiGuard Labs. “It is critical for organizations to take measures to protect their remote workers and help them secure their devices and home networks for the long term. It is also wise to consider adopting the same strategy for cyber viruses that we are adopting in the real world. Cyber social distancing is all about recognizing risks and keeping our distance.”

Although many compelling threat trends were related to the pandemic, some threats still had their own drivers. For example, ransomware and attacks targeting Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices as well as operational technology (OT) are becoming more targeted and more sophisticated.

Well-known threats such as ransomware have not diminished during the last six months. COVID-19-themed messages and attachments were used as lures in a number of different ransomware campaigns. Other ransomware was discovered rewriting the computer’s master boot record (MBR) before encrypting the data. In addition, there was an increase in ransomware incidents where adversaries not only locked a victim organization’s data but stole it as well and used the threat of widescale release as additional leverage to try and extort a ransom payment.

The Global Threat Landscape Report is drawn from Fortinet’s array of sensors collecting billions of threat events observed around the world during the first half of 2020. It covers global and regional perspectives as well as research into three central and complementary aspects of that landscape: exploits, malware, and botnets.

Channel Impact^®
With the increase in connectivity, devices, and ongoing need for remote work, the digital attack surface is expanding, and attackers are looking for the weakest link and fresh attack opportunities. Partners need to help their customers take concrete steps to protect their users, devices and information in ways similar to the corporate network.

NVIDIA Adds New Benefits to Partner Program

Nvidia Corporation, a Santa Clara, California-based designer of graphics processing units for the gaming and professional markets, has upgraded its partner program for enhanced support of advanced AI, cloud and edge computing systems.

Specifically, the company has introduced educational tools and resources for training and collaboration, as well as added sales incentives. These benefits include new courses and enablement tools in healthcare, higher education and research, financial services and insurance, and retail; a new learning matrix based on industry and cross-referenced by role, including sales, solution architect or data scientist; new AI consulting services; and an enhanced partner portal with industry-specific marketing campaigns.

Upgraded incentives include a fixed backend rebate for Elite-level Solution Provider and Solutions Integration partners for compute, compute DGX, visualization and virtualization; an enhanced quarterly performance bonus program; and dedicated market development funds for Elite-level providers and integration partners.

NVIDIA’s enterprise partner program has grown to more than 1,500 members worldwide.

Channel Impact^®
The move underscores ongoing adjustments that vendors need to make in order to keep their partner programs in sync with evolving market conditions.

Ingram Micro Adds Veritas Backup Solutions to Cloud Marketplace

Ingram Micro has expanded its global engagement with Veritas, making Veritas’ SaaS Backup solutions available to channel partners worldwide via the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace.

“Organizations of all sizes are investing in digital transformation, including embracing cloud and SaaS applications,” said Simon Jelley, vice president of product management at Veritas. “With the rapid adoption of cloud and SaaS, organizations must ensure they don’t overlook the responsibility to protect all their business data. Data protection is not guaranteed by the cloud and SaaS application providers,”

Available now on the Ingram Micro U.S. Cloud Marketplace, with plans for global marketplace expansion, the Veritas SaaS Backup solution is a comprehensive data protection service – including backup and recovery – for a variety of SaaS applications including Microsoft Dynamics and Office 365 applications, as well as G-suite, and Salesforce. While SaaS Backup is the first Veritas solution to launch on the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace, other Veritas solutions, including Backup Exec, are also expected to launch globally in the future.

“Tapping into the global buying power of the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace works to enable our partners to sell SaaS applications including Office 365, together with Veritas’ data management and protection solutions, helping us even better respond to the growing need for SaaS-based solutions, consumed on demand,” added Tim FitzGerald, vice president, Cloud Channel at Ingram Micro.

Ingram Micro’s Cloud Marketplace serves 6.5 million seats, offering more than 120 cloud solutions through a curated selection of SaaS and IaaS solutions.

Channel Impact^®
This new “as-a-service” distribution model further simplifies the sales and ongoing management of Veritas’ backup solutions for allied channel partners worldwide.