Alarming Surge in AI-Driven Cybercrime in H1 2024

Trend Micro’s mid-year roundup report highlights resilience of threat actors

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 27 August 2024 – Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704) a global cybersecurity leader, today warned that threat actors have bounced back from recent law enforcement efforts to unleash a new wave of attacks leveraging AI and other techniques.

Read the report “Pushing the Outer Limits: Trend Micro 2024 Midyear Cybersecurity Threat Report”: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk/security/research-and-analysis/threat-reports/roundup/pushing-the-outer-limits-trend-micro-2024-midyear-cybersecurity-threat-report

Tony Lee, Head of Consulting at Trend Micro Hong Kong and Macau: “Trend Micro blocked over 75.9 billion threats for customers in the first half of the year, but there’s no time for complacency. As malicious actors begin to embrace AI as a tool, industry must respond in kind, by designing security strategies to take account of evolving threats. This is an arms race we can’t afford to lose.”

As detailed in the mid-year roundup report, the threat from malicious actors remains acute despite successful law enforcement actions against LockBit (Operation Cronos), dropper malware networks (Operation Endgame), and unsanctioned use of Cobalt Strike (Operation Morpheus).

A big cause of concern is criminal use and abuse of AI. Trend Micro has observed threat actors hiding malware in legitimate AI software, operating criminal LLMs, and even selling jailbreak-as-a-service offerings. The latter enable cybercriminals to trick generative AI bots into answering questions that go against their own policies—primarily for developing malware and social engineering lures.

Also in H1 2024, cybercriminals have been ramping up deepfake offerings to carry out virtual kidnapping scams, conduct targeted BEC-type impersonation fraud, and bypass KYC checks. Trojan malware has been developed to harvest biometric data to help with the latter.

Other highlights from the first half of 2024 include:

• LockBit remains the most prevalent ransomware family despite law enforcement disruption, and has even developed a new variant, LockBit-NG-Dev
• Cybercriminals have leveraged major events such as the Olympics and national elections to launch targeted attacks
• Notable APT campaigns have exploited geopolitical tensions, such as Earth Lusca’s campaign around the China-Taiwan relations
• State-aligned actors used sophisticated techniques to compromise internet-facing routers for anonymization of targeted attacks
• Various groups have targeted cloud environments, apps and services by abusing exposed credentials, dangling resources, vulnerabilities, and even legitimate (but misconfigured) tools

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Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro’s AI-powered cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, Trend’s platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 70 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world. www.TrendMicro.com.hk