From Ransomware to Cyber Espionage: 55 Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Weaponized in 2022
As many as 55 zero-day vulnerabilities were exploited in the wild in 2022, with most of the flaws discovered in software from Microsoft, Google, and Apple
Ransomware encrypts or steals data to disrupt operations and extort victims, making backups, access controls, and incident response essential.
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Background for this topic.
Ransomware is malware used to deny access to systems or data, usually by encrypting files and demanding payment for decryption. Many operations also steal sensitive information and threaten to publish it, so an attack can create both an availability crisis and a privacy or disclosure risk. Initial access may involve phishing, stolen credentials, exposed remote services, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities; attackers may then move through the network before deploying the payload.
Defenses should combine vulnerability management, phishing-resistant authentication where practical, endpoint and network monitoring, and backups that are isolated from routine administrator access and regularly tested for recovery. Organizations should also limit privileges and segment critical systems to reduce the blast radius. An incident requires rapid containment, preservation of forensic evidence, restoration from known-good backups, and assessment of notification, legal, and regulatory obligations. Threat intelligence can help identify relevant criminal infrastructure or tactics, but it does not replace sound access control, patching, detection, and recovery practices.
As many as 55 zero-day vulnerabilities were exploited in the wild in 2022, with most of the flaws discovered in software from Microsoft, Google, and Apple
This article has not been generated by ChatGPT. 2022 was the year when inflation hit world economies, except in one corner of the global marketplace – stolen data. Ransomware payments fell by over 40% in 2022 compared to 2021. More organisations chose not to pay ransom demands, according to findings by blockchain firm Chainalysis
The threat actors behind the CatB ransomware operation have been observed using a technique called DLL search order hijacking to evade detection and launch the payload