Image used for representational purpose only
Image used for representational purpose only

Cyber attack: Hyderabad at moderate risk, Telangana relatively safer than other states

Hyderabad is at moderate risk of cyber attacks and hacks.

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad is at moderate risk of cyber attacks and hacks. Telangana, as a whole, is relatively safer when compared to other States, found the annual report of Quick Heal antivirus as it rounded up the devastating attacks of last year.The report said Hyderabad was among the cities to have recorded the highest detections in 2018 and that it automatically puts it under the radar of high risk zones for cyber-attacks in 2019. It listed Hyderabad city as seventh among 16 cities with the highest number of attacks occured in 2018. 

The cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata took the top spots in the order. 
However, when compared State-wise, Telangana is relatively safer than most other States. 
While users from Maharashtra, Delhi and West Bengal reported to have had the highest number of cyber attacks, those from Telangana, Haryana and Odisha were lower. Other States where cyber attacks were most prevalent were Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

Meanwhile, in its report, Quick Heal down the most effective cyber-attacks that the world saw in 2018. As for ransomware — a type of software designed to deny access to a computer until a ransom is paid — GandCrab was the most threatening. “GandCrab was first observed in late January 2018 and within a month they claimed to have infected over 48,000 nodes,” the report sad.

Other ransomwares that affected users were Dharama, RYUK, Katyusha ransomware, WannaCry, Foreign, Cerber, Jigsaw, Onion, Locky, CTBLocker and others. Apart from ransomware, cryptojacking was also a preferred method of hackers to harass users. “Due to its ease of deployment and an instant return of investments, cryptojacking has replaced ransomware as the number one threat for consumers and enterprises,” it said adding that cryptomining consumes 100 per cent of the computer’s CPU power. It also observed Internet of Things was developing into a means to conducting cyber-attacks. 

This can be attributed to the relative scalability and simplicity of the millions of devices that can easily be turned into potential victims, to cause cyber-attacks of a larger scale and stronger impact. This simply means that it will not be long before your brand new connected coffee machine, refrigerator, microwave or for that matter your connected car, will serve as potential entry points to your network, leading to security risks and privacy intrusion,” Quick Heal antivirus’ annual report added.    

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