Cloud vulnerability exploitation spikes

Cyberattacks leveraging cloud system vulnerabilities have increased by 95% between 2021 and 2022, VentureBeat reports. "Cloud-conscious" threat actors have also increased by nearly threefold during the same period, with the rate of those conducting cloud data theft and extortion rising by 20%, a report from the CrowdStrike Intelligence Team revealed. "There is increasing evidence that adversaries are growing more confident leveraging traditional endpoints to pivot to cloud infrastructure. The reverse is also true: The cloud infrastructure is being used as a gateway to traditional endpoints," said the report. Meanwhile, cybercrime breakout times dropped from 98 minutes to 84 minutes, suggesting the need for security teams to accelerate threat response efforts. Cybersecurity threats should be identified within the first minute, understood within the first 10 minutes, and addressed within 60 minutes, according to CrowdStrike. The findings also showed the booming businesses of access brokers and brokerages, with ads selling stolen identities and credentials increasing by 112% from 2021 to 2022.