Top infection vectors

In the cyberattack chain, once an attacker has conducted reconnaissance against the target victim’s environment and infrastructure, and prepared the necessary weapons and equipment, the next step is to determine their preferred method and technique to gain initial access to the victim’s environment. Attackers have several techniques at their disposal to gain initial access, including sending phishing emails, exploiting public-facing applications, luring users to visit a compromised website through drive-by compromise, and stealing valid remote credentials such as a VPN or RDP. Understanding the various techniques attackers use to gain initial access is crucial for security professionals to identify and prevent attacks before they can cause damage.

As per the IBM Security X-Force report, 41% of the attackers prefer phishing techniques to gain initial access to the victim’s environment, either by sending a weaponized document or a malicious link to the target victims (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 – The top infection vectors from the IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2022

Let us explain why most attackers prefer to gain initial access by using phishing mechanisms.