Attack Trends in 2022

In this virtual presentation hosted in AltspaceVR for the DEF CON 30 DCGVR track, Jon Clay, VP of Threat Intelligence at Trend Micro, provides an analysis of the cyber attack landscape in 2022. He opens at 07:00 by mapping the evolution of threat actors, contrasting entry-level script kiddies with organized ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) cartels and nation-state advanced persistent threats.

Jon analyzes modern adversary tradecraft at 14:00, explaining the proliferation of initial access brokers (IABs) on underground forums and the tactics attackers use to move laterally into cloud infrastructure. At 21:00, he examines how threat groups continually tweak code to evade endpoint detection systems and heavily exploit living-off-the-land binaries already present on victim systems.

Highlighting rapid exploit weaponization at 28:00, Jon warns that the window between vulnerability disclosure and automated in-the-wild exploitation has collapsed to hours. He advocates for modern security operations at 35:00, urging organizations to adopt continuous Attack Surface Management (ASM) and discovery frameworks to identify exposed assets before adversaries do. He closes at 42:00 with questions from the virtual reality audience. (AI summary — Gemini Flash)