Attackers have upped their game. Recent incidents of breaches no longer ended with intrusion or data exfiltration alone. In 2015 we witnessed the prevalence of incidents wherein organizations’ troves of valuable data were at the mercy of cybercriminals and attackers.

The Ashley Madison breach, for instance, didn’t just subject its users to embarrassment, but also to extortion when users were coerced to pay in exchange for anonymity. A surveillance company, called the Hacking Team, also suffered from a breach that included several vulnerabilities and exploits that were used in other cyber attacks. Should breaches of this magnitude continue, we can expect to see more destructive attacks– with greater implications on companies and customers as well.

For cybercrime, underground markets have evolved to match the most profitable products and services per region. Established Chinese and Russian marketplaces remained to be leaders in terms of technological advancements. These underground economies quickly adopted improvements in payment systems and sales automation. Less-developed markets were able to slowly make headway with cybercrime trends. Transactions within the Brazilian cybercriminal underground, for example, are blatantly advertised through social media sites because of lax regulations. Meanwhile, the Japanese underground thrived on exclusivity and the taboo in spite of the nation’s strict laws. Trends in the cybercriminal underground are important for local law enforcement agencies to consider so they can ensure the safety of their citizens.

Developments in 2015 have also fostered the expansion of interconnectivity. Together with these developments are the growing risks in the Internet of Things (IoT). Successful hacks on smart cars, gas pump monitoring systems, among others, serve as proofs of concept (POCs) for the potentially serious and even fatal damages of unsecure connected devices. In addition, devices running on different operating systems also make security updates more complex and open for compromise.

Other topics highlighted in the report:

Traditional strategies are no longer sufficient to protect an organization’s assets. These paradigms reveal how organizations should adopt a more comprehensive approach to security as more potent attacks lie ahead. Read our annual security roundup, Setting the Stage: Landscape Shifts Dictate Future Threat Response Strategies, to learn about the developments in the security landscape and how you can protect your organization from these threats.

Ransomware has made the jump to Mac. Learn more about KeRanger, the first known ransomware to infect OS X machines, in our article.

Trend Micro and Ponemon Institute conducted a study on how IoT affects the privacy and security of users. How much of the IoT will consumers embrace to experience the benefits of a more “connected” life?

A Seagate employee discloses thousands of employees’ tax information after falling victim to a phishing attack. Read more in our article.

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