When developing cybersecurity strategies for their clients, the best security leaders look at the future of cybercriminal activity while learning from the past. In Fortinet’s 1H 2023 Threat Landscape Report the FortiGuard Labs team looked in their crystal balls, and in their rearview mirrors to analyze current threat trends involving exploits, malware and botnets against the past five years. Here is what they discovered:

There has been a surge in exploit variants

Over the past five years, there has been a 68 percent increase in the number of unique exploit detections. This suggests that security leaders have more methods to detect malicious attacks than before and that attackers are using more diverse and numerous exploits. However, the FortiGuard Labs team has also seen a decrease in exploitation attempts per organization by 75 percent and a 10 percent reduction in severe exploits.

These numbers could indicate that cybercriminals are engaging in more sophisticated attacks. As the report notes, “Cyber weapons can also become weary if used too often, as detection capabilities will eventually pick up, rendering the payload useless over time.”

Malware activity is on the rise thanks to organized crime

In the “bad news” category, the report also states that, “Malware families and variants have exploded over the past five years, up 135 percent and 175 percent, respectively.” 

It is also worth noting that the amount of malware families that have managed to infiltrate at least 10 percent of global organizations (which is considered a critical threshold) has doubled. The FortiGuard Labs team believes this is likely due to an increase in cybercriminal and nation-state groups, as well as the expansion of their current operations.

Botnets have become more persistent

The FortiGuard Labs team found that today there are more active botnets (+27 percent) and a higher incidence rate of botnet infection among organizations (+126 percent). Even more concerning is the increase in the total number of “active days”—the time between when botnet activity is first detected and the last sensor “hit.” This measures the average number of days between when security teams detected and blocked botnet communications before they changed course following an unsuccessful breach attempt.

According to the report, over the last six months, the number of active days averaged 83 of 183 days (the last day the FortiGuard Labs team measured), nearly half the period. This represents a more than 1,000-fold increase from measurements taken at the beginning of 2018, indicating that botnets have become more persistent over the past five years.

Sharing threat intelligence is critical to effectively identifying and remediating cyberattacks from today’s sophisticated cybercrime enterprises. Get your copy of Fortinet’s 1H 2023 Threat Landscape Report to future-proof your security strategy. You can also tune into their Threat Intelligence Podcast to hear from Fortinet’s top threat experts as they delve into today’s critical cybersecurity topics and the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape.