Kaspersky, on Wednesday, in their vision for the future of advanced persistent threats (APTs) predicted a high likelihood of a major cybersecurity threat.
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The forecast, based on the tracking of 900 APTs by their Global Research and Analysis Team, said that attackers and specialists adept at mixing physical and cyber intrusions could employ drones for proximity hacking.
Possible attacks could include scenarios where drones mounted with sufficient tooling would allow the collection of WPA handshakes used for offline cracking of WiFi passwords or even delivering malicious USB keys in restricted areas.
The forecast also predicted a record rise in destructive cyber-attacks due to the current political climate. These attacks are expected to target both government sectors and key industries.
Attacks on civilian infrastructure such as energy grids, public broadcasting, underwater cables, and fibre distribution are also predicted.
The threat forecast for 2023 also predicted attacks on mail servers to intensify, with zero-day vulnerabilities targeting major email programs.
Other major predictions include the targeting of satellites by threat actors, hack-and-leak attacks, and the shifting of APT groups from CobaltStrike to alternatives.
While hack-and-leak attacks have been witnessed in 2022 as well, the report predicts these will persist.
As for APT threat actors moving away from CobaltStrike, the report said that attackers are likely to shift to alternatives like Brute Ratel C4, Silver, Manjusaka, or Ninja as they offer more advanced evasion technologies.
The report also noted that SIGINT, one of the most potent attack vectors that uses servers in key positions of the internet backbone to allow interception and injection of messages during online communication, could become widespread.
