Threat Actors Breach Enterprises in 18 Minutes: ReliaQuest Reveals Oyster Malware's Rapid Evasion Tactics

Threat actors are breaching enterprise networks in record time, with average breakout times shrinking to 18 minutes (June-August 2025, per ReliaQuest), including a six-minute Akira ransomware hit via SonicWall VPN. Driven by automation, legitimate tool abuse, and evasion, attacks favor drive-by compromises (34%) and USB-based Gamarue malware, which conceals DLLs and spoofs LNK files on trusted media.


Oyster malware dominates, using AI-powered SEO poisoning and malvertising to target IT admins, distributing trojanized tools like PuTTY from fake sites (e.g., puttysystems[.]com) for privileged access.


Oyster evades detection by exploiting rundll32.exe to load "twain_96.dll" via scheduled tasks mimicking maintenance (e.g., rundll32.exe twain_96.dll,DllRegisterServer), accounting for 48% of "Match Legitimate Name or Location" incidents. Counter with advanced behavioral monitoring and anomaly detection.
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