According to experts within the industry, the SUNBURST cyber attack appears to be one of the most complex and sophisticated cyberattacks in history. The SolarWinds-Sunburst campaign is the first major supply chain attack of its kind and represents a shift in tactics where nation-State threat actors have employed a new weapon for cyber-espionage, and the use of a supply chain attack has changed the way one needs to defend against these cyberattacks.
These types of attacks impact not only private companies but also pose a threat to individuals and their families, given that in todays highly interconnected homes, a breach of consumer electronics could result in attackers accessing smart devices like smart phones to steal information or to act as a gateway to attack business. Unlike government networks, that store classified information on isolated networks, private organisations often have critical intellectual property (IP) on networks with access to the internet making these attacks even more dangerous.
Hackers make us of trusted software to bypass cyberdefenses, then infiltrate the organisations and steal data, destroy data, hold critical systems for ransom, orchestrate system malfunctions or simply implant malicious content through the organization to stay in control even after the initial threat appears to have passed.
Another observation has been made on the threat that they can also use social networks, such as LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Facebook, and twitter to engage and develop relationships with and then compromise corporate employees, through who they compromise the broader enterprise.
While enterprises assert security controls over corporate issued devices and place restrictions on how consumer devices access IT assets, user activity on social network platforms are not monitored and controlled in the same way making it somewhat more difficult.
There has been a forecast that social network platforms attacks are becoming more common in the years to come, particularly among most advanced actors.