'Island hopping' cyberattacks growing in popularity, claims Carbon Black

Hackers are increasingly targeting supply chains as well as networks, according to report from endpoint security vendor

‘Island hopping' - the practice of attacking a supply chain as well as its network - is growing in popularity among hackers, according to research by Carbon Black.

The endpoint security vendor collected data from over 100 of its incident response partners over the last 90 days and found that half of the surveyed attacks implemented island hopping.

The report also revealed that 56 per cent of respondents encountered occurrences of counter-incident response over the same time period.

Nearly three quarters of all cyberattacks now involve attempts at lateral movements by hackers, as they attempt to take advantage of new vulnerabilities and native operating system tools to move around a network, the research found.

The research also reported that 31 per cent of those targeted experienced destructive attacks, a byproduct of hackers getting better and longer access to the victims' environments.

Though the financial and healthcare industries are still the most vulnerable to attack, the threat to the manufacturing sector has grown significantly, reported Carbon Black.

Carbon Black's incident response partners include Optiv, Dark Matter and BTB Security.

In the 90-day period in which the survey was conducted, 70 per cent of those surveyed saw attacks on the financial industry, with 61 per cent witnessing attacks on healthcare and 59 per cent reporting attacks on the manufacturing industry.

Tom Kellermann, chief cybersecurity officer at Carbon Black said: "Attackers are fighting back. They appear to have no desire to leave the environment. And they don't just want to rob you and those along your supply chain.

"In the parlance of the dark web, attackers these days appear to want to ‘own' your entire system."