Operation Lotus Blossom describes a persistent cyber espionage campaign against government and military organizations in Southeast Asia, stretching back over three years. Nations we have identified as targeted in this campaign include Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. The Lotus Blossom group deploys a backdoor Trojan, named Elise, after the sports car made by Group Lotus PLC of the United Kingdom.

It is essential that information security practitioners, from management and governance to enablement and execution, stay up to date on the trends, distribution patterns and risks presented by the ever-evolving threat landscape.

No organization today is immune to cybercrime. Cyber criminals are ramping up activity across the globe and utilizing new methods to evade traditional security measures. An effective network security solution must not only prevent known threats from entering and damaging the network, but also leverage global threat intelligence to protect the network from unknown threats. Traditional detection-focused solutions typically focus on a single threat vector across a specific section of the network, leaving multiple areas vulnerable to attack. In addition, these legacy solutions are made up of a “patchwork” of point products that make it very difficult to coordinate and share intelligence among the various devices. By employing the Palo Alto Networks® Threat Intelligence Cloud, businesses can reduce their attack surface, block all known threats, and leverage the global threat community to detect unknown threats and convert them into known, stoppable threats.

Cybercrime is big business. By many estimates, cybercrime is now a US$1 trillion dollar industry. Every organization with digital assets is vulnerable to attack and the growing sophistication of cyber criminals and their evolving tactics only increases the chance of a security breach involving the theft of sensitive data. Effective cyber defense must withstand changes to adversaries’ tactics and tools that traditional, non-integrated “best of breed” approaches cannot address. It must also protect against advanced known threats, as well as unknown threats, which can be challenging to address with legacy solutions. The Enterprise Security Platform from Palo Alto Networks® is a modern approach to providing new defense and resilience in detecting and preventing attacks at every stage of the Cyber Attack Lifecycle.