Q1 2020 Top Cyberthreats Trends in ASEAN Identified: Botnets, Ransomware, Cryptojacking

February 26, 2020 – Cyberattacks have been evolving in the last few years; cybercriminals are working 24/7 to employ new ideas with new methods of attacks using recent technologies. With the vast growing use of cryptocurrencies in the digital market, and the ability to harness the computing power of “unknown users” to perform cryptojacking, businesses and individuals users across the globe are at risk.

“In today’s highly digitalized world, the sooner countries are aware of a threat, the sooner they can take steps to mitigate the risk and minimize the cyber threats coming from all directions.” – Craig Jones, INTERPOL’s Director of Cybercrime

The data were analyzed INTERPOL ASEAN Cybercrime Operations Desk provided by INTERPOL Private Sector Cybersecurity partnership to identify the region’s top cyber threats;

Botnets – In the first half of 2019, there was an increase in botnet detections and hosting of Command and Control (C2) servers in the ASEAN region.
Phishing – campaigns are increasing in both quantity and sophistication, using advanced social engineering techniques.
Business email compromise (BEC) – ASEAN countries faced a growing number of BEC attacks.
Banking malware – the first half of 2019 saw an increase in attacks compared to 2018.
Ransomware – continues to grow and evolve in response to the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies.
Cryptojacking – has emerged as a new threat due to the growing use of cryptocurrencies.

The success of Operation Goldfish Alpha reduced 78% of infected devices, last November 2019, in a joint operation of Cybercrime investigators and experts from police and National Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) across the 10 ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) worked together to locate the infected router, informed the users and patch devices.

Director Craig Jones said in a statement:

“To this end, we encourage law enforcement in all countries to be actively engaged in collective efforts against these threats, particularly through sharing intelligence and the formulation of a joint operation framework to effectively reduce the global impact of cybercrime.”

The fight against Cryptojacking and Operation Night Fury against malware targeting e-commerce websites result in the arrest of three individual suspected of controlling command servers in Indonesia.