So, who exactly is involved in the IoT hunt? Here are some key findings of this report:
- Networks in China (primarily state-owned telecom companies and ISPs) headlined the threat actor list, accounting for 44% of all attacks in Q3 and 21% in Q4.
- Trailing behind China, the top threat actors in Q3 were Vietnam and the US, and Russia and the UK in Q4. (The UK surprisingly jumped to third place in Q4 with most activity coming from an online gaming network.)
- Russia, Spain, the US, and Turkey were the top 4 targeted countries (in that order) in Q3 and Q4.
- Russia, at 31% in Q3 and 40% in Q4, was the number one target of all top 50 source countries.
What can concerned enterprises do to deal with the IoT threat?
- Have a DDoS strategy that can support attack sizes beyond your network capacity.
- Ensure all of your critical services have redundancy, even those you outsource.
- Put pressure on IoT manufacturers to secure their products, and don’t buy products that are known to be insecure or compromised.
- Share your knowledge—about vulnerable devices, attacks and threat actors, successful mitigation efforts, and potential solutions—with other security professionals.
To see the full version of this report, click “Download” below.
About the authors
Sara Boddy
Threat Researcher | F5
Sara Boddy was a Senior Director overseeing F5 Labs and Communities. She came to F5 from Demand Media where she was the Vice President of Information Security and Business Intelligence. Sara ran the security team at Demand Media for 6 years; prior to Demand Media, she held various roles in the information security community over 11 years at Network Computing Architects and Conjungi Networks.
More research by Sara Boddy
Justin Shattuck
Threat Researcher | F5
Justin Shattuck was a Principal Threat Researcher for F5 Labs. He has been an avid threat hunter for most of his life and continually tracks attack campaigns and threat actors. He routinely participates in takedowns and helps to inform various law enforcement agencies of nefarious cyber activity. Justin has been a security product developer and researcher for over 15 years. Most recently he was the Manager of Product Development for F5 Silverline where he was responsible for developing features and enhancements to F5 Silverline's managed security services including Web Application Firewall and DDoS attack mitigation.
More research by Justin Shattuck
