Cyber Defense eMagazine July Edition for 2022

The Numbers Are In: Identity-Based Attacks (Still) Reign
Supreme in 2022
By Greg Notch, CISO, Expel
The list of challenges security professionals face will not let up, as new threats emerge on a weekly—
even daily—basis. Security teams need to stay informed if they want to effectively protect themselves
and their organizations, so they’re constantly asking themselves a stream of questions: How are attackers
behaving? Are certain attack types becoming more prevalent? What vulnerabilities are attackers
exploiting, and how can organizations fight back?
Today’s businesses can’t afford to wait--they need information they can act on right away. That’s why
Expel recently released its first Quarterly Threat Report (QTR), highlighting cybersecurity trends from the
first quarter of 2022 that provide insight into what organizations can expect as the year continues. It won’t
come as a shock to learn that identity-based attacks loom large and should be considered public enemy
number one.
Attackers Continue to Exploit Poor Identity Security
Identity-based attacks accounted for 65% of all incidents observed by Expel during Q1, with business
email compromise (BEC) and business application compromise (BAC) accounting for 63% on their own.
The remaining 2% were identity-based attacks within cloud environments like Amazon Web Services
(AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This keeps with the broader trend: attackers are leveraging
stolen credentials and other vulnerabilities to exploit poor identity security and gain access to networks.
The 2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report underscores these findings, noting that stolen
credentials led to nearly 50% of all attacks in 2021—an increase of nearly 30% in the past five years
alone.
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