ChannelVision Magazine

Cyber Patrol 12 Channel Vision | January - February, 2018 There’s no sign of things abating any- time soon, either. In fact, 2018 promises a ramp-up in volume across the board, as attacks become more sophisticated and the attack surface widens with deep- ening network complexity, the cloud, the internet of things and mobility character- izing today’s business landscape. For channel partners, the message should be clear: Building a cybersecurity prac- tice should be an important priority for the year ahead. According to the Online Trust Alliance (OTA), 2017 was “the worst year ever in data breaches and cyber-incidents around the world.” OTA’s Cyber Incident & Breach Trends Report found that not only was there skyrocketing ransomware usage, but ransomware attacks on busi- nesses nearly doubled as well. One of the reasons for that came in mid-2017 when another type of ransomware attack emerged – the ransom denial-of-service (RDoS) attack. In this attack, criminals send an email to domain owners threatening a distrib- uted denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that will make a website inoperable unless a ransom (usually via Bitcoin) is paid. “Surprising no one, 2017 marked an- other ‘worst year ever’ in data breaches and cyber-incidents around the world,” By Tara Seals ThreatAnalysis T he number of cyberattacks doubled in 2017, with ransomware leading the way. Targets were large and small, multinational and regional. A year of the escalating cyber-threat