Mass attacks have given way to targeted attacks with unique forms of malware, according to a new report from Cisco, and that trend is accelerating.
Cisco’s second quarter Global Threat Report found 287,298 unique instances of malware in June of 2011. That figure is more than double the 105,536 that Cisco found during March 2011. Since the beginning of 2011, unique instances of malware have grown even more. Back in January, Cisco found 72,294 unique instances of malware.
The new Global Threat Report data mirrors findings from a Cisco Security Intelligence Operations report out in July that found a decline in mass email based attacks in favor of targeted attacks. Symantec also found this to be the trend in its research released earlier this year.
If we could identify APTs by a software signature, we wouldn’t need to call them ‘advanced persistent threats’,” Gavin Reid, manager of the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) at Cisco, wrote in the report. “If anyone attempts to sell your organization a hardware or software solution for APTs, they either don’t understand APTs, don’t really understand how computers work,or are lying or possibly all three.”
