The End Of The World For APTs As We Know Them In 2016

• APTs lose letters, gain weight. There will be a dramatic change in how APTs are structured and operate:

o Kaspersky Lab expects to see a decreased emphasis on ‘persistence’, with a greater focus on memory-resident or fileless malware, reducing the traces left on an infected system and thereby avoiding detection.

o Rather than investing in bootkits, rootkits and custom malware that gets burned by research teams, Kaspersky Lab expects to see an increase in the repurposing of off-the-shelf malware. As the urge to demonstrate superior cyber-skills wears off, return on investment will rule much of the nation-state attacker’s decision-making and nothing beats low initial investment for maximizing ROI.

• Thieves in the TV and/or crime in the coffee-maker. Ransomware will gain ground on banking Trojans and is expected to extend into new areas such as OS X devices, often owned by wealthier and therefore more lucrative targets, in addition to mobile and the Internet-of-Things.

• New ways to make you pay. Alternative payment systems such as ApplePay and AndroidPay, as well as stock exchanges will become growing targets for financial cyber-attack.

• A Leaked life. 2015 saw a rise in the number of DOXing, public shaming and extortion attacks, as everyone from Hactivists to nation-states embraced the strategic dumping of private pictures, information, customer lists, and code to shame their targets. Sadly, Kaspersky Lab expects this practice to continue to rise exponentially in 2016.