Nokia’s latest Threat Intelligence Report warns that the arrival of 5G will accelerate a surge in IoT botnet attacks, building on this year’s record numbers.
In 2018, IoT botnets accounted for 78% of malware detection events within communication service provider networks — more than double the rate recorded in 2016.
As 5G enables faster, broader IoT deployments, the number of potentially compromisable devices will rise significantly, increasing the attack surface for cybercriminals.
Kevin McNamee, Director of Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Lab, explained:
“Cybercriminals are shifting focus away from traditional computers and smartphones and targeting the growing population of vulnerable IoT devices being deployed.”
“Thousands of device manufacturers are racing products to market, and security is often an afterthought.”
Trend Micro published a report this week showing that many widely used IoT standards are fragile from a security perspective. When weak standards are combined with a rapid increase in device numbers, the result is a serious vulnerability across networks and services.
We have already witnessed extraordinary botnet attacks. The most notable example was the Mirai botnet in 2016, when more than 100,000 compromised devices overwhelmed Dyn with traffic estimated at around 1.2 Tbps.
Experts warn that future attacks could eclipse Mirai.
“Cybercriminals now have increasingly sophisticated tools to scan for and rapidly exploit vulnerable devices, to propagate malware and to bypass firewalls,” said McNamee.
“If a vulnerable device is exposed on the internet, it can be compromised within minutes.”
The full Nokia Threat Intelligence Report 2019 is available from Nokia’s site.
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