Trending Cyber Attack Vectors & Mitigations
Shak
| Attack Vector | Examples | Key Mitigations |
| Exploitation of Public-Facing Applications | Widespread, multi-actor exploitation of Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-53770, CVE-2025-53771) to gain initial access, steal cryptographic keys, and deploy ransomware or conduct espionage. | Patching & Hardening: Prioritise rapid patching of all internet-facing systems. Post-Patch Threat Hunting: After patching, immediately initiate a threat hunt for signs of persistent compromise (e.g., webshells, stolen MachineKeys). Architectural Review: Reduce the attack surface by limiting the exposure of administrative interfaces to the internet. |
| Social Engineering (Helpdesk Vishing) | The "Scattered Spider" group breached Clorox by repeatedly calling their third-party IT provider, Cognizant, and manipulating helpdesk agents into resetting passwords and MFA for privileged accounts. | Harden Human Processes: Mandate stringent, non-bypassable identity verification for all credential/MFA resets (e.g., live video call, callback to a pre-registered number). Third-Party Risk: Enforce explicit security and liability clauses in all third-party service contracts. Training: Conduct high-fidelity vishing simulations for all staff, especially helpdesks. |
| Credential Theft & Guessing | The Akira ransomware group forced the 158-year-old KNP Logistics into closure after gaining initial access by simply guessing a single weak employee password. | Phishing-Resistant MFA: Aggressively deploy FIDO2/passkey-based MFA universally, especially for remote access and privileged accounts. Password Hygiene: Enforce strong, unique password policies and use credential monitoring services to detect leaked passwords. Monitoring: Implement account lockout policies and monitor for brute-force or password-spraying attempts. |
| Social Engineering (User-Initiated Execution) | The "ClickFix" / "pastejacking" technique tricked users with fake CAPTCHAs into copying malicious PowerShell commands and pasting them into trusted shells (Win+R), bypassing EDR to deliver malware like NetSupport RAT. | Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR): Create specific detection rules to alert on suspicious process chains (e.g., a browser spawning PowerShell with encoded commands). Application Control: Use application whitelisting to restrict the use of scripting engines like PowerShell for standard users. User Awareness: Train users to never manually copy and execute code from untrusted web pages. |
| AI-Generated Malware | The 'Koske' Linux cryptominer, described as "100% AI-generated," used advanced evasion techniques like polyglot files (malicious code hidden in JPEGs) and multiple persistence mechanisms. | Behavioural Analytics: Shift from signature-based detection to tools that focus on behavioural analysis and intent inference to spot novel malware activity. Assume Breach: Recognise that AI can generate evasive malware faster than signatures can be created; focus on rapid detection and response. |
| Supply Chain Compromise (Human/Process) | The Clorox breach was facilitated by a failure in the security processes of its IT outsourcing partner, Cognizant, highlighting the risk of the outsourced human supply chain. | Contractual Scrutiny: In partnership with legal teams, review and amend all third-party service contracts to include explicit cybersecurity responsibilities and financial liability for negligence. Audits: Conduct deep, intrusive audits of critical third-party security processes, not just questionnaire-based assessments. |
| In-Memory / Fileless Execution | The "Gold Melody" Initial Access Broker exploited leaked ASP.NET MachineKeys to trigger a deserialisation vulnerability, allowing them to execute malicious code directly in the memory of IIS web servers without writing files to disk. | Memory Monitoring: Deploy EDR/XDR solutions with robust memory scanning and behavioural analysis capabilities on critical servers. Secret Management: Establish a formal process for rotating application-level cryptographic secrets (e.g., MachineKeys) and trigger it after any suspected compromise. |
| AI-Enhanced Identity Fraud | North Korean state actors used AI-generated photos and deepfakes to create credible fake IT worker personas, successfully bypassing corporate background checks to gain insider employment at target companies. | Enhanced Vetting: Augment HR and recruitment screening with tools capable of detecting AI-generated media. Identity Verification: Implement stronger, multi-factor identity verification steps during onboarding for all remote employees. |
| Supply Chain Compromise (Software) | A hacker compromised Amazon's "Q" coding assistant by submitting a malicious pull request to a public GitHub repository that the AI consumed, turning the AI into a malware distribution vector. | Secure SDLC: Implement Software Composition Analysis (SCA) to scan for vulnerable or malicious dependencies. Code Repository Security: Enforce security best practices like commit signing and protected branches (e.g., on GitHub). AI Governance: Vet and secure the data sources used to train internal AI models. |
| Exploitation of Virtualisation Platforms | The "Fire Ant" group exploited a long-standing zero-day in VMware vCenter (CVE-2023-34048) to bypass network segmentation and maintain persistent access within victim's virtualised environments. | Aggressive Patching: Ensure virtualisation management platforms (vCenter, ESXi) are included in critical patching cycles. Access Control: Tightly restrict network access to management interfaces. Monitoring: Monitor hypervisor-level logs for anomalies, unauthorised VM modifications, or unusual snapshot activity. |
The current threat landscape is defined by a strategic shift away from purely technical exploits towards the systemic exploitation of institutional trust. Adversaries are finding it more efficient and effective to bypass security controls by targeting the seams between technology, people, and processes.
Three dominant trends fuel this:
Industrialisation of Social Engineering: Attackers are weaponising the human element at scale. Whether it's manipulating third-party helpdesks (Scattered Spider), tricking users into executing code themselves (ClickFix), or using AI to create fake identities, the primary target is now human trust and procedural weakness, not just software vulnerabilities.
AI as an Attack Accelerator: Artificial Intelligence is no longer a theoretical threat. It is actively being used to create novel, evasive malware (Koske) faster than defenders can react and to automate complex attack chains. Simultaneously, the enterprise rush to adopt AI has created a new, poorly secured attack surface that is ripe for compromise.
Convergence on Core Platforms: Adversaries of all motivations from nation-state spies to ransomware criminals are converging on ubiquitous, high-value enterprise platforms like Microsoft SharePoint. A single vulnerability in this core infrastructure now acts as a gateway for multiple, concurrent attack campaigns, demanding a far more dynamic response.
Expert Opinion:
We have reached an inflection point where traditional security models focused on perimeter defence and reactive patching are fundamentally broken. The most catastrophic breaches this month were not caused by exotic zero-days, but by a single guessed password or a manipulated phone call, rendering millions in security tooling and cyber insurance insufficient.
The strategic imperative for any CISO is to re-architect security around a principle of explicit, continuous verification a Zero Trust model that extends beyond networks and devices. This model must be applied ruthlessly to our human processes (like credential resets) and our supply chains (both software and third-party services).
Resilience has definitively replaced prevention as the key metric for survival. The primary goal is no longer to build an impenetrable fortress, but to assume breach and engineer an organisation that can withstand an attack, detect it quickly, and recover critical operations before existential damage is done.
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