Flashpoint’s 2021 Intel Wrap-Up: Cyber Intel Reports

What’s on tap

Flashpoint’s 2021 Intelligence Wrap-Up series continues over the next couple of weeks with a flurry of fresh analysis. Together, we hope that these reports, outlined below, will provide intelligence and security practitioners with perspective into the year that was and direction into the year that will be. 

Begin by reading our holiday retail fraud and physical security threats reports—and stay tuned for more, including 2022 outlooks:

Pricing on Illicit Marketplaces: 2021 Cybercrime Economy Analysis

How much does RDP server access cost? And what about a DDos-for-hire service? What are the real price points for a variety of offerings, such as fraudulent COVID-19 vaccine cards, exploit kits (ransomware, e.g.), payment card data, and more?

Like last year’s report, we’ll dig into the cost of doing business on the deep and dark web. 

Breaches and Malware: 2021 Retrospective 

In this report we highlight trends observed in forums and marketplaces, including breached data, network access, various hacking services, and malware strains like ransomware, stealers, and remote access trojans.

2021 Insider Threats: Insights and Analytics

How are threat actors recruiting, and advertising to, to insiders? Which industries are most at risk of attack? What were the insider threat trends in 2021? In this report, we’ll dive into the insider threat landscape across in open, closed, and invite-only communities. Plus, we’ll examine the most prolific threat actors and channels of 2021. 

2021 Cyber Threat Landscape In Review

Against the backdrop of significant political, economic, and societal shifts, the cyber threat landscape underwent notable changes in 2021. In this report we’ll review shifts in cybercrime environments—from cryptocurrency exchanges, ransomware trends, and content bans on various marketplaces, to advanced persistent threat (APT), state-sponsored cyber activity, and new (or newly prominent) attack vectors.

The State of Ransomware: 2021

This, ransomware increased in scope and scale. Operators have varied their extortion tactics and altered the way that they recruit affiliates. In this report we’ll provide a graphical analysis of ransomware, backed with data from our collections—groups, attacks, geography, timing, and more.

Threats to Look Out For in 2022

In this article we take a look into cybercrime’s crystal ball: the behavioral trends of cybercriminals; extortion tactics by ransomware operators; the increasing proliferation of information-stealing malware, cryptocurrency regulation, and decentralization; the prevalence of DDoS attacks; social engineering attempts to manipulate the media; and much more. 

2021 Threat Landscape: Asia-Pacific

This was a year of heightened tensions between the United States and China; the cyber domain has become a proxy for real world conflicts. This report will focus on some of the common attack types and fraud venues observed by Flashpoint from Chinese-language communities and other areas in the Asia-Pacific region. Additionally, it will highlight some of the real-world events that are affecting the cyber threat landscape. 

Stay tuned!