Akamai Sees 'Significant' Rise in Security Attacks in Q3; NCTA Sees More Software Patches

Web application attacks rose 69 percent in Q3 over the same time last year, continuing a trend of increasing vulnerabilities fueled in part by unsecured IoT devices (see 1711210047), Akamai reported Tuesday. With holidays approaching, criminals may increase malicious activities, including use of ransom letters, it said: The Mirai botnet and WireX malware attacks suggest attackers may be leveraging IoT and Android devices to build future botnet armies. The Android-based WireX botnet infected as many as 150,000 devices within weeks, illustrating the "worrisome potential for cyber attackers to compromise and leverage mobile devices in their exploits," the company said. More promising is the multicompany effort that successfully stopped the botnet while still in its relative infancy, it said. Nonetheless, criminals are getting smarter and new attacks on mobile platforms are likely, wrote Senior Security Advocate Martin McKeay. "Our experience suggests that an army of new potential attackers comes online every day." NCTA blogged Monday that it's working with the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group to improve information sharing on distributed denial of service attacks, and to develop IoT security standards. "We should expect to see more end-user devices supporting automatic software updates," wrote Matt Tooley, vice president-broadband technology. "A huge and growing problem involves devices ... not getting a security patch and then later being used by cyber criminals."