New 2015 Cloud Security Report Uncovers “Quite a Year”
2015 was a prolific year for cybercrime. In the public sector, OPM was the banner breach (full cost as yet unknown, but the feds are spending $133 million on credit monitoring alone). Meanwhile in the private sector, hacking cost the average American firm $15.4 million per year, with the more costly cybercrime carried out by malicious insiders, DDoS and web-based attacks.
But what about the cloud? As cloud growth continues, hackers now have a larger attack surface to gain access to sensitive data. A new report by DLT partner, Alert Logic sheds light on the state of cloud security, the Alert Logic 2015 Cloud Security Report is based on analysis of the threats and attacks identified across its entire customer base (public and private sector) between January 1 and December 31 2014 and is representative of what threats organizations will face as their workloads move to the cloud.
Among the one billion events and 800,000 cloud and on-premises security incidents identified in 2014, Alert Logic detected almost every type of attack imaginable. A holistic review of the data revealed the prevalence of particular attack types:
Top 3 Threats (year-over-year comparison)
| Cloud Environments | On-Premises Data Center |
| 70% App attack | 60% Suspicious activity |
| 68% Suspicious activity | 56% Trojan |
| 56% Brute force | 52% App attack |
Overall, the attacks targeting on-premises assets haven’t changed much from previous years. Although Brute Force and Trojan attacks have declined since 2013. “This relatively flat 2014 trend, in regards to on-premises data center attacks, is not surprising,” claims Alert Logic. “Attackers understand how to penetrate these environments and continue to use what they perceive to be effective attack vectors.”
In cloud environments, however, 2014 was “quite a year”. With more organizations adopting the cloud, Alert Logic detected an increase in attack percentages among its cloud-using customer base, with application attacks being the most prevalent form of attack. Reconnaissance also increased big time in 2014. Common scans detected by Alert Logic includes ZmEu, Morfeus, VNCScan, and Nessus scans, as well as multiple generic scans. Suspicious activity increased slightly as well, indicating more unknown or unfamiliar activity around our customers’ environments.
Download the full report for more findings that can help inform your agency or organization’s cloud security framework, plus a handy checklist that you can share with your team to start the conversation of bolstering your security.
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