What is a Hybrid Attack? Today’s Biggest Cyber Threat

December 14, 2023

What is a Hybrid Attack? Today’s Biggest Cyber Threat

The current approach to detecting and stopping cyberattacks that rely on signatures, anomalies, and rules to see and stop cyber criminals from penetrating your organization and stealing your data isn’t working.

If it was, 71% of analysts worldwide (and 84% in the US) wouldn’t admit that their organization could be compromised and they wouldn’t even know about it.

The fault is hardly theirs. Attack surfaces are expanding faster than analysts and their tech stacks can detect them.

Recently, 63% of surveyed SOC analysts said their attack surface has significantly increased in the past three years alone, and 97% of analysts worry they will miss an event because it was buried in a flood of security alerts.

A new perspective and approach are desperately needed.

All Enterprises Are Hybrid Enterprises

The reality is that as enterprises have shifted to hybrid and multi-cloud environments, they have become, without exception, hybrid enterprises. As a result, SOC analysts are continuously faced with more:

Attack surface for attackers to exploit and infiltrate
Methods for attackers to evade defenses and progress laterally
Noise, complexity, and hybrid attacks

What’s more, all enterprises will continue to be hybrid going forward.

All Modern Attacks Are Hybrid Attacks

Given this fact, all modern attacks on enterprises should be viewed as hybrid attacks. To do otherwise is to remain stuck with the status quo of more unknown attacks and more data theft.

In fact, according to IBM Security Research, in 2021, 45% of breaches were cloud-based. Vectra AI predicts this will be well over 50% in 2023 because the shift to hybrid cloud infrastructure is not slowing down, nor is attackers’ ability to take advantage of it. This leaves your team virtually in the dark when it comes to detecting where you’ve been breached.

Who can afford that?

A practical definition of a hybrid attack is one that can start with anyone or anything, move anywhere at any time, and disrupt business operations at scale, despite having every preventative measure in place. This means that more attacks are hiding from and evading your best detection efforts.

To put it bluntly, your team can’t defend against unknown hybrid attacks with your current approach.

An Integrated Approach to Defending Against Hybrid Attacks

However, once you adopt a holistic and integrated approach to hybrid cloud cyber resilience, your entire security posture changes radically for the better.

There are three core pillars of our integrated approach to identifying hybrid attacks.

Defend against unknown exposure — Know where your hybrid cloud environment is exposed to attackers. Knowing where attackers have proven to infiltrate your organization and applying that knowledge to get ahead of it is critical to improving hybrid risk posture. Case in point, CheckPoint Software noted that 75% of successful cyberattacks in 2020 used vulnerabilities that were over two years old.
Eliminate unknown compromises — Know when hybrid attackers have infiltrated your environment. Not knowing this is the result of too many siloed tools sending disparate detection signals to SOC analysts. Eliminate the complexity that makes it easier for hybrid attacks to infiltrate, blend in, and progress inside your organization unseen. ‍
Quickly detect and resolve unknown hybrid attacks — Know where hybrid attackers are moving laterally, progressing inside your environment. Knowing how hybrid attackers move laterally across domains to progress their campaigns goes a long way to stopping them early and preventing data exfiltration.

Signal Clarity Is the Only Solution to Hybrid Attacks

To promptly and effectively deal with hybrid attacks, your SOC team needs the one thing they continue to lack — signal clarity. The lack of a clear hybrid attack signal is the reason system intrusions, aka Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), doubled from 2020 to 2021 accounting for 40% of data breaches.

Vectra AI delivers signal clarity across your entire attack surface so you can identify the most urgent threats in a matter of minutes, categorize them by attack method, and prioritize them by urgency. With signal clarity, your SOC team is efficient, effective, and resilient in spotting and stopping hybrid attacks.

Interested in learning more about how Vectra’s Advanced Signal Intelligence helps companies like KPMG gain the upper hand against hybrid attacks? Check out the proof and power behind our integrated signal.

FAQs

Why are current methods of detecting and stopping cyberattacks considered ineffective?

Current methods relying on signatures, anomalies, and rules are inadequate because the expanding attack surfaces and increasing complexity of threats outpace analysts' ability to detect them. The inefficacy is highlighted by the fact that a significant percentage of SOC analysts admit their organizations could be compromised without their knowledge.

What defines a hybrid enterprise in the context of cybersecurity?

A hybrid enterprise operates in both on-premises and cloud environments. This mixed infrastructure increases the attack surface and introduces various complexities and vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit.

How prevalent are cloud-based breaches in recent years?

Cloud-based breaches have been increasingly prevalent, with 45% of breaches being cloud-based in 2021, and this number is expected to surpass 50% as hybrid cloud infrastructure continues to grow and attackers become more adept at exploiting it.

What are the three core pillars of the integrated approach to hybrid attack defense?

Defend against unknown exposure: Identify and mitigate vulnerabilities within the hybrid cloud environment.
Eliminate unknown compromises: Streamline and integrate detection tools to reduce siloed signals and improve visibility.
Quickly detect and resolve unknown hybrid attacks: Monitor lateral movement and early stages of hybrid attacks to prevent further progression and data exfiltration.

How does Vectra AI enhance signal clarity for SOC teams?

Vectra AI enhances signal clarity by delivering advanced signal intelligence across the entire attack surface. It helps identify urgent threats quickly, categorize them by attack method, and prioritize them based on urgency, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of SOC teams in dealing with hybrid attacks.

What challenges do SOC analysts face with expanding attack surfaces?

SOC analysts are dealing with more extensive attack surfaces due to the shift to hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This expansion increases the complexity and noise of the security alerts, making it more challenging to identify and prioritize real threats among numerous alerts.

Why are modern attacks classified as hybrid attacks?

Modern attacks are classified as hybrid because they can initiate from any point within the enterprise's environment, exploit vulnerabilities across different systems, and propagate laterally. This characteristic makes them difficult to detect and stop using traditional, siloed defense mechanisms.

What is the importance of an integrated approach to defending against hybrid attacks?

An integrated approach is crucial as it provides a comprehensive view of the hybrid cloud environment, reducing the complexity and silos that hinder effective detection and response. This approach enables the SOC to better identify, understand, and mitigate hybrid attacks.

What are the three core pillars of the integrated approach to hybrid attack defense?

Signal clarity is essential for SOC teams to effectively identify, categorize, and prioritize threats. It enables analysts to focus on the most urgent and critical threats, reducing the risk of overlooking significant security events amidst a flood of alerts.

What benefits have companies experienced using Vectra’s Advanced Signal Intelligence?

Companies like KPMG have gained a significant advantage against hybrid attacks through Vectra’s Advanced Signal Intelligence. It provides them with improved visibility, faster threat detection, and more effective prioritization, enabling them to maintain a resilient security posture against sophisticated hybrid attacks.