SPVA Panel Session: What's Threatening PCI DSS?

Malware is a humungous force to be reckoned with, all the recent advances in technology did not retard the progress and impact associated concomitant to it. Malware actually rode the improving technology and made it its tool and an affiliate. Social network, e mail and mobile devices are becoming a major conduits to propagating malware of different types. Malware is becoming better at protecting itself. The development of technologies that enable malware to evade detection and analysis made it virtually unstoppable in infiltrating its high-value targets. Malware continues to be a problem for Communications Service Providers and their customers. The session introduces the history of malware, how it has evolved over a period of time. A threat ecosystem is an interdependency of different technologies and the people behind them that are vital to the success of an attack.

This presentation explains the threat ecosystem of malware. How malware impacts Communication Service Providers (CSPs). A view of malware activity in mobile and fixed networks around the world. Then the presentation will zoom in on IoT botnet activity that has increased substantially since the introduction of Mirai in 2016. Many of these IoT botnets leverage the basic architecture and functionality of the Mirai source code.

The presentation then elucidates the IoT botnet family tree, how a botnet works, how these spread and communicate with each other as well as command and control server. The presentation then highlights different variants of botnets and provides a high level overview of each variant. What are the top 20 most prolific malware found on the internet today? Highlight the infection types and rates in different type of networks like mobile and fixed.

Finally the presentation will provide some views on how different type of malware threats can be detected and mitigated and how networks can be protected proactively.