Cybercrime , Fraud Management & Cybercrime , Fraud Risk Management

Top Cybersecurity Challenge: 'More Capable Threat Actors'

McAfee's Raj Samani on the Latest Threat Trends, Including Nonstop Criminal Innovation
Raj Samani, chief scientist, McAfee

The pace of online crime hasn't flagged so far this year, as hackers - both criminals and nation-states - have retooled many of their attacks to take advantage of the ongoing pandemic, says Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee.

See Also: OnDemand | Hacking Your Organization: 7 Steps Cybercriminals Use to Take Total Control of Your Network

At the same time, they also continue to innovate, including a massive increase in the use of Powershell and other "living off the land" tactics, McAfee has found. There's also been a steady rise in ransomware gangs exfiltrating data and threatening to leak it as further inducement for victims to pay them a ransom.

"it's been a really busy couple of months, not only in terms of prevalence, but I think predominantly also because you've seen these more capable threat actors as well." Samani says. "During lockdown, cybercrime didn't shut down - it's probably one of the few sectors that actually thrived, as opposed to say, for example, traditional crime."

In this in-depth video interview, Samani also discusses:

  • Threat trends: Diving into the new McAfee Labs COVID-19 Threats Report;
  • Operation North Star: How a hacking group is using template infection attacks to target the defense and aerospace sectors with fake job offers;
  • A deep dive into the Netwalker ransomware gang as well as the rise in "post-intrusion ransomware" data-exfiltration schemes.

Samani is the chief scientist of McAfee and a cybersecurity adviser to EU's law enforcement agency, Europol.


About the Author

Mathew J. Schwartz

Mathew J. Schwartz

Executive Editor, DataBreachToday & Europe, ISMG

Schwartz is an award-winning journalist with two decades of experience in magazines, newspapers and electronic media. He has covered the information security and privacy sector throughout his career. Before joining Information Security Media Group in 2014, where he now serves as the executive editor, DataBreachToday and for European news coverage, Schwartz was the information security beat reporter for InformationWeek and a frequent contributor to DarkReading, among other publications. He lives in Scotland.




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