Cloud security company Zscaler has published its Zscaler ThreatLabz 2024 Mobile, IoT, and OT Threat Report. It offers an overview of the mobile and IoT/OT cyber threat landscape from June 2023 through May 2024.
The Zscaler ThreatLabz team analysed a data set collected from the Zscaler Security Cloud between June 2023 and May 2024, comprising more than 20 billion threat-related mobile transactions and associated cyber threats.
The findings in this report stress the urgency for organisations to reevaluate and secure mobile devices, IoT devices and OT systems. ThreatLabz identified more than 200 malicious apps in the Google Play Store, with more than eight million collective installs globally, and the Zscaler cloud blocked 45% more IoT malware transactions than last year – indicative of botnets continuing to proliferate across IoT devices.
“Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting legacy exposed assets which often act as a beachhead to IoT & OT environments, resulting in data breaches and ransomware attacks,” said Zscaler Chief Security Officer Deepen Desai. “Mobile malware and AI-driven vishing attacks add to that list, making it critical for CISOs and CIOs to prioritise an AI-powered zero trust solution to shut down attack vectors of all kinds safeguarding against these attacks.”
The report revealed that Singapore is the second most targeted nation by mobile malware in the Asia Pacific region. The top five targeted countries in the region are India, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, and Indonesia.
With a 77% rise in spyware year over year in the region, cyberattacks have never been more profitable for threat actors, either through monetary gain via direct extortion or passed through stolen personally identifiable information and user credentials that can be sold and leveraged in future attacks.
Anatsa, a known Android banking malware that distributes malware using PDF and QR code readers, has targeted more than 650 financial institutions and, more specifically, users in Singapore, Germany, Spain, Finland, and South Korea.
With its central role in global communication and data processes, Singapore stands out as the second most impacted country by IoT attacks after the United States, accounting for 5.3% of all attacks globally. The top five countries that receive the most IoT traffic are the United States (81.3%), Singapore (5.3%), the United Kingdom (2.8%), Germany (2.7%), and Canada (2%).
Globally, the technology (18%), education (18%) and manufacturing (14%) sectors are the most frequent targets of mobile malware. In particular, education saw a dramatic 136% increase in blocked transactions compared to the previous year.
Additionally, manufacturing experienced the highest volume of IoT malware attacks for the second year in a row, accounting for 36% of all IoT malware blocks observed on the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform. When analysing unique devices across different verticals, this sector stands out with the highest implementation of IoT devices due to its extensive use of IoT applications, ranging from automation and process monitoring to supply chain management.
Once air-gapped and isolated from the internet, OT and cyber-physical systems have rapidly become integrated into enterprise networks, enabling threats to proliferate. OT deployments can involve thousands of connected devices spread across dozens of sites, creating a substantial attack surface for external threats, such as those that exploit known zero-day vulnerabilities. Additionally, this also creates a large attack surface between internal (east-west) OT traffic, increasing the risk of lateral movement and the potential blast radius of a successful attack.
With today’s hybrid-work environments, users can work from anywhere with internet access. To enable secure hybrid work and provide seamless access to any application, enterprises need to retire network-centric approaches, which hamper productivity and leave them vulnerable to lateral movement. Instead, organisations must adopt a zero-trust architecture that enables secure remote access from any user device to any application from any location.
