Fraud Management & Cybercrime , Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development , Ransomware
Threat Watch: Ransomware, Cryptocurrency Mining and More
McAfee's Raj Samani and Steve Povolny Round Up the Latest Advanced Threats
What are the top cybersecurity threats and trends on security experts' radar? Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee, and Steve Povolny, the company's head of advanced threat research, point to the Olympic Destroyer false flag malware attack McAfee discovered as one example of how online attackers continue to refine their abilities (see Winter Olympics Gold Medal for False Flag Goes to ... ?).
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The information security experts say the Winter Olympics episode demonstrates how attackers continue to get better at retooling their attack campaigns to utilize the latest attack techniques, including adjusting their operational security - OPSEC - "in flight" in response to defenders' and researchers' attempts to track and mitigate the hack attacks.
In a video interview at RSA Conference 2018, Samani and Povolny discuss:
- Lessons learned from Olympic Destroyer malware;
- The ongoing rise of targeted ransomware attacks;
- Cryptocurrency mining;
- Big-picture takeaways from the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal.
In addition to his role at McAfee, Samani is a member of the Advisory Group on Internet Security for the Europol Cybercrime Center, or EC3, as well as the chief innovation officer for Cloud Security Alliance. He previously worked as a security consultant for CapGemini and as an information security manager for consultancy Deloitte.
Povolny is head of advanced threat research at McAfee. His previous positions include working as a senior manager for Trend Micro's TippingPoint DVLabs as well as a security engineer for Target.
