Cyber Risks · Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks

Network Attack Trends: February-April 2021

Summary: Unit 42 researchers analyzed 4,969 new CVE numbers registered between February and April 2021, of which 3,849 carried a medium or higher severity score, and found that 72.7% of the 4,327 analyzed CVEs were remote vulnerabilities exploitable over a network. Across more than 10.6 million verified attack sessions, exploitation of high-severity vulnerabilities rose to 62.3% of observed sessions from 10.7% the previous quarter, with code execution accounting for 45.6% of attacks and the largest share of attacks originating from the United States, followed by Russia and China.

Why it matters: Attackers shifted decisively toward high-severity flaws in a single quarter, and the report notes they also drew on newer vulnerabilities disclosed within the past year alongside exploits from 2017-19 - meaning unpatched systems from multiple eras were in active use as entry points.

Read the original at Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks ↗

Topics
Zero-Days & Exploits
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