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In a latest threat research from Malwarebytes for Quarter 1 of the year 2019, a 200% jump in ransomware and a continued increase in business targets for cyberthreats was observed.
Attackers have started shifting back their focus on ransomware attacks with an observed steep decline in the attacks on crypto mining and an increase in the mobile attacks as well as cyber attacks on large-scale business invasions.
Shifting trend in ransomware attacks
- When compared to last year, a drop of around 10% has been detected in the consumer ransomware detection while there has been a 33% decrease in the consumer-focused ransomware.
- On the other hand, business ransomware detections have increased more than 200% during the last quarter when this data is compared with the last quarter a 500% increase is observed in comparison with the detections recorded in the same quarter last year.
“Cyber criminals have shifted their focus from consumers to businesses- Adam Kujawa”
Reasons for an upward shift in the percentage of Ransomware attacks
- Trojan malware has seen 200% increase from the previous quarter and almost 650 % from the same time last year. Similar trend is noticeable towards business targets where the number of Trojan detection has more than tripled for businesses while this number has decreased to less than half for consumers.
- Malware targeting consumers have decreased by 40% while consumer data when considering the detection of business targets has seen a whopping 235% increase within a few years.
- ‘Emotet’ trojan is still targeting enterprises. Detection of Trojans for businesses has increased by more than 200% since the last quarter of 2018 which is almost 650% more in comparison with the same time last year.
- U.S. leads with the maximum number of global threat detection at 47%, followed by Indonesia with 9% and Brazil with 8%.
What should be done to curb this increasing percentage of ransomware attack?
- Train employees with regular cyber security awareness and training sessions.
- Limit employees’ authority to download or install software or data to which they can have an access.
- Cyber attack simulation and awareness tools like ThreatCop help in strengthening employees’ defenses against any real-life cyber-attack.
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