Cyber Criminals are adopting Database as a Service (DBaaS) platforms in the cloud for targeted attacks instead of more traditional ways, according to a report from network security firm Imperva.
Hackers had infected 330 machines with malware using a banking Trojan during five days in June, the latest Hacker Intelligence Initiative report revealed.
The research found that 54% of infected machines are using the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, with South America accounting for 60% of the infections.
Amichai Shulman, CTO at Imperva, said: "Our research suggests that we will soon see autonomous malware targeting internal databases within organisations – which we believe would lead to a greater risk of infection and compromise within a network.
The report said the ease of accessing databases and creating privilege escalation attacks could increase risk to corporate data.
"Organisations need to take the risks posed by cloud services into consideration as they decide which data they want to store externally, and adopt a mitigation strategy accordingly," added Shulman.
