Cybersecurity solutions provider Trend Micro released its 2018 Security Roundup Report, which depicts a threat landscape that has evolved heavily in both approach and tactics. “One shift in attacks that businesses should be aware of is the rapid growth of cryptocurrency mining, which increased 237 per cent in the same time,” added the report.
Overall, attacks that capitalise on the human desire to respond to urgent requests from authority are on the rise, such as Business Email Compromise (BEC) and phishing, with phishing URL detections having increased an incredible 269 per cent compared to 2017.
In 2018, Asia and the Americas saw the highest number of ransomware threats. Out of the 1.8 billion ransomware threats reported globally from January 2016 to December 2018, India accounted for 10 per cent of all ransomware threats blocked by Trend Micro. And within Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa (AMEA), India accounted for an astounding 30 per cent of all ransomware threats blocked.
Also, India was placed in the fourth position in the number of email threats blocked by Trend Micro, which stood at 1.5 billion email threats. Over 30 million malware were detected by Trend Micro in India in 2018.
“The changes across the threat landscape in 2018 reflect a change in cybercriminal’s mindset,” said Jon Clay, director of global threat communications for Trend Micro. The number of BEC attacks in 2018 increased by 28 per cent. While these attacks are less frequent than phishing attacks, they are more sophisticated and take more careful planning for cybercriminals and they yield an average of $132,000 per attack.
As these attacks contain no malware and go undetected by traditional security measures, companies need to increase their protection against these attacks with smart solutions that analyze the email writing style of key executives in order to identify whether the email may be fraudulent.
Another strong indicator of how the threat landscape is shifting can be seen in the types of threats that decline. Ransomware detections, for instance, decreased by 91 per cent compared to 2017.