Security researchers claimed that cloud apps are being used more than usual to deploy malware. They said that more than half of all computer viruses are delivered through these applications.
A particpant checks a circuit board next to an oscilloscope on the first day of the 28th Chaos Communication Congress (28C3) - Behind Enemy Lines computer hacker conference on December 27, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The Chaos Computer Club is Europe's biggest network of computer hackers and its annual congress draws up to 3,000 participants.
According to TechRadar Pro's latest report, cybercriminals and other malicious actors are now using cloud apps to deliver malware since most businesses and companies are now moving their workloads to the cloud service.
Netskope's new study revealed that the hackers are currently doing this so that they can easily evade legacy security defenses and other protective features. On the other hand, Dark Reading confirmed that 61% of malware is currently delivered via cloud apps.
These include Amazon S3, SharePoint, and OneDrive. The security firm's "Cloud and Threat Report February 2021" edition compilation showed that the number of cloud apps in use by every organization or company increased by 20%.
More and more cloud apps are being used
The researchers stated that 500 to 2,000 employees are currently using 664 distinct cloud applications on average every month. What's alarming about this result is that most of them or almost half of the recorded cloud apps have a poor-rating in Netskope's Cloud Confidence Index.
A participant looks at lines of code on a laptop on the first day of the 28th Chaos Communication Congress (28C3) - Behind Enemy Lines computer hacker conference on December 27, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The Chaos Computer Club is Europe's biggest network of computer hackers and its annual congress draws up to 3,000 participants.
This system is currently used to determine a cloud service's enterprise readiness. Ray Canzanese, Netskope's Threat research director, highlighted important details on why hackers and online attackers are targeting cloud apps more than usual.
"Cybercriminals increasingly abuse the most trusted and popular cloud apps, especially for cloud phishing and cloud malware delivery," he said via TechRadar Pro.
"Enterprises using the cloud need to quickly modernize and extend their security architectures to understand data content and context for apps, cloud services, and web user activity," he added.
Hackers' use of cloud apps is increasing each year
On the other hand, the security experts stated that the hackers' use of cloud applications has increased by up to 48% year-over-year. While this is happening, the popularity of cloud service in the different companies and business have made them targets of phishing attacks. Aside from this, Netskope's security researchers added that phishing campaigns and other online attacks are currently targeting one out of three cloud apps.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
