There were 13 Point-of-Sale (PoS) malware signatures created in 2014, compared to three in 2013.
According to the Dell SonicWALL Threat Research Team, the majority of these POS hits targeted the US retail industry as part of an evolution of POS malware tactics.
“Malware targeting point-of-sale systems is evolving drastically, and new trends like memory scraping and the use of encryption to avoid detection from firewalls are on the rise,” said Patrick Sweeney, executive director of Dell Security.
“To guard against the rising tide of breaches, retailers should implement more stringent training and firewall policies, as well as re-examine their data policies with partners and suppliers.”
Attacks were also noted on SCADA systems, with a two-fold increase in SCADA attacks compared to 2013. The majority of these attacks targeted Finland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and mainly consisted of buffer overflow vulnerabilities continue to be the primary point of attack.
“Since companies are only required to report data breaches that involve personal or payment information, SCADA attacks often go unreported,” said Sweeney. “This lack of information sharing combined with an aging industrial machinery infrastructure presents huge security challenges that will to continue to grow in the coming months and years.”
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