A new report released today by cybersecurity firm Carbon Black Inc. predicts a change in the security landscape in 2019 based on the rise of cyberattacks fueled by geopolitical tension.

The 2019 Global Threat Report analyzes data gathered from Carbon Black customer endpoints through 2018 to extrapolate where cyberthreats are heading.

Across the company’s customers, approximately 1 million attempted cyberattacks occur every day. The top five industries targeted are computers and electronics, healthcare, business services, internet and software and manufacturing.

The growing trend noted last year was a rise in attacks from Russia, China and North Korea. China and Russia alone were said to be responsible for nearly half of all cyberattacks investigated by Carbon Black through the year, with North Korea making “a splash toward the end of 2018.”

Dubbing 2018 as “The Year of the Next-Gen Cyberattack,” the report shows a rise of attacks using techniques such as lateral movement, island hopping and counter incident response to stay invisible.

Lateral movement, which now accounts for 60 percent of all attacks, refers to a technique used by cyberattackers that sees them progressively move through a network to search for key data and assets that are the target of their attack campaigns

“We believe 2019 promises to be a year where endpoint visibility becomes more paramount than ever as attackers continue to evolve and global tensions increase,” the report noted.

In other stats, the report said about $1.8 billion of cryptocurrency-related thefts occurred in 2018.

Image: Carbon Black