Malware is a significant, and continuing, problem. A 2019 Verizon study shows that 28% of all data breaches involve malware, and new forms of malware and ransomware are emerging into the wild almost daily.

The challenge of fighting malware is that hackers are finding new ways to inject programs into systems. Even with advanced compliance and security guidelines in private and public markets, these hackers are working every technical and social angle possible to attack industrial, commercial and defense systems. And, unfortunately, it only takes one malicious program to completely bring a system to its knees. We’ve seen this most recently and publicly with the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, which cost the company $2.3M.

In the past 5 years, new forms of malware have emerged. Two of these, encrypted and fileless malware, have become more sophisticated and, thus, more dangerous. These attacks are harder to detect, using our existing security measures and assumptions about malware against us.