Human-driven cyber incidents increased by 1.5 times in 2022

Research based on the analysis of incidents reported to customers of Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response (MDR) has revealed that Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts discovered more than three high-severity incidents with direct human involvement every day in 2022. 

The efficiency provided by external specialists when dealing with cybersecurity solutions, as well as the need for specialized knowledge, were the primary reasons for companies to outsource external experts in 2022. Kaspersky analyzed anonymized customer incidents detected by its MDR service to address knowledge gaps among IT Security professionals and provide them with insights into the current threat landscape.   

According to Kaspersky’s annual Managed Detection and Response Analyst Report, high-severity incidents required an average of 43.8 minutes for Kaspersky MDR to detect. This processing time increased by approximately 6% over the previous year due to an increase in human-driven attacks, which consume more SOC analyst time.

Regarding the nature of such incidents, 30% of them were associated with APTs, 26% accounted for malware attacks, and just over 19% resulted from “ethical hacking” (pentests, red teaming or any other types of cyber exercises conducted in customers’ infrastructures either for the security assessment of IT systems or to test the operational readiness of the MDR service). The proportion of incidents involving publicly available critical vulnerabilities and the detection of traces of previous attacks involving humans was around 9%. The remaining incidents resulted from the successful use of social engineering techniques or were linked to insider threats.    

‘The MDR report shows that sophisticated attacks driven by humans continue to grow. They require more resources to be investigated and they take up more of SOC analyst time as this type of attack lends itself to automation to a lesser degree. To detect these attacks efficiently we recommend companies to implement comprehensive threat hunting practices combined with classic alert monitoring,’ comments Sergey Soldatov, Head of Security Operations Center, Kaspersky. 

For greater protection from advanced attacks, Kaspersky experts recommend the following:

• Deploy a solution that combines detection and response capabilities and help identify threats without involving additional in-house resources. 
• Provide your SOC team with access to the latest threat intelligence and ensure in-depth visibility into cyberthreats targeting your organization.
• Provide your staff with essential cybersecurity knowledge to reduce the likelihood of targeted attacks. 
• Implement expert Incident Response training to improve the expertise of your in-house digital forensics and incident response team.