Malware Attack Popular Amongst the Hackers, Even though it Dips in Q2 in 2018

A new research by Positive Technologies have found out through the data that malware attacks are found to be the top-most method of attack, despite of the fact that malware attacks in Q2 were reported to be less common as compared to the first quarter of 2018.

Positive Technologies, in its report Q2 2018 Cybersecurity Threatscape, have found that the total number of cyber incidents that are unique have increased by 47% from last year's second quarter. Malware attacks, however, show a decrease in the second quarter from 63% in the first quarter to 49%. Besides, there has been a tremendous popularity and growth graph for other attacks, like compromise of credentials more than doubled in between Q1 (7% out of all the methods of attacking) and Q2 (19%). Also, exploitation of web vulnerability increased from 12% in Q1 to 18% in Q2.

The report further found that the unique cyber incidents were largely carried out on companies, on their clients and on cryptocurrency exchanges. In the month of May and June this year, the hackers targeted cryptocurrencies, which affected Bitcoin, Verge, Monacoin, Gold, ZenCash, Litecoin Cash and other currencies as well. The number of attacks on cryptocurrencies in Q2 has been recorded to be double the attacks in Q1 this year. The hackers stole over $100 million from the cryptocurrency platforms during Q2. Most of the times, the attackers compromised the online platforms as well as e-commerce websites to steal personal information, account credentials, credit card information, and so on.

Positive Technologies wrote that "we took a look at which information attracted hackers the most in Q2 2018. At the top of the list are personal data (30%) and account credentials (22%), such as for online banking. Credit and debit card information (15%) was obtained most often by using spyware or via compromised websites".

The targeted attacks in the Q2 of 2018 against the companies and organizations were 54% of all attacks; however, only a few attacks, i.e. only 15% of those were targeted against the government. Infrastructure was target of 44% of all attacks in the second quarter, whereas the attack on the web resources grew from 23% in Quarter 2 of 2017 to 32% in the year 2018.

» SPAMfighter News - 10/16/2018