Cisco alerts of ‘destruction of service’ attacks

Networking company, Cisco, has said that the rapid evolution of threats and the increasing magnitude of attacks and forecasts are potential “destruction of service” (DeOS) attacks.

In its 2017 Mid-year Cyber Security Report, Cisco revealed that these DeOS attacks could eliminate organisations’ backups and safety nets required to restore systems and data after an attack.

The report provides data-driven industry insights and cyber security trends from the first half of the year, along with actionable recommendations to improve security posture.

It is based on data from a vast footprint, amounting to a daily ingest of over 40 billion points of telemetry.

According to Cisco, with the advent of the Internet of things (IOT), key industries are bringing more operations online, increasing attack surfaces and the potential scale and impact of these threats.

It indicated that the recent cyber incidents, such as, WannaCry and Nyetya showED the rapid spread and wide impact of attacks that look like traditional ransomware, but are much more destructive.

The networking company noted that these events foreshadow what Cisco is calling destruction of service attacks, which can be far more damaging, leaving businesses with no way to recover.

The report added that IOT continues to offer new opportunities for cyber criminals, and its security weaknesses, ripe for exploitation, will play a central role in enabling these campaigns with escalating impact.

Cisco believes recent IOT botnet activity already suggests some attackers may be laying the foundation for a wide-reaching, high-impact cyber threat event that could potentially disrupt the Internet.

“As recent incidents like WannaCry and Nyetya illustrate, our adversaries are becoming more and more creative in how they architect their attacks,” says Steve Martino, vice-president and chief information security officer at Cisco.

“While the majority of organisations took steps to improve security following a breach, businesses across industries are in a constant race against the attackers. Security effectiveness starts with closing the obvious gaps and making security a business priority,” it stated.