Cloud Sync Applications Cause Malware to Spread Across Computers

One fresh report shows how cloud application use rapidly expanding isn't merely disseminating malicious software quicker than before, but proliferating ransomware encryption impact too among end-users. This happens despite the secondary infected user not really downloading the malware himself.

The report having the title Worldwide Cloud Report for February 2016 by Netskope the security broker for cloud access notes multiple instances wherein an end-user computer's files were encrypted using ransomware along with those same files' replicas stored onto sync folder belonging to one well-known cloud storage app getting encrypted. Thereafter, when secondary end-users as well by default performed syncing of the same folder the files on their computers too got encrypted.

The report further states that Netskope scrutinized just official cloud applications that are just some 5% of all cloud-based applications as well as that a far more than 4.1% is the aggregate count of cloud applications which carry malware alternatively, help in spreading the same.

Meanwhile, the manner in which impacted organizations dealt with encrypted files' dissemination of cloud-based kind hasn't been reported. But, Barnett pointed out that within an experimental ransomware assault, which Netskope controlled, by isolating and killing the malware, the remedy passed onto the entire cloud too. Scmagazine.com posted this online dated February 29, 2016.

And though cloud-based services are highly lauded since they enhance productivity, the report from Netskope requires being considered a warning to organizations that must exercise utmost caution regarding the platforms on which they launch the kind of applications in future.

Moreover, according to Netskope's research, worldwide, companies put in use a mean of 917 business-associated cloud applications, with most apps short of being sanctioned. The number is the largest ever seen as also it shows a 21% hike from the earlier three months.

Also, owing to the cloud applications' 99.99 percent guaranteed uptime performance, developers of malware have begun targeting and incorporating the services to form the central component of their wares.

Following Netskope's discovery, it can unsurprisingly happen of any ransomware family, which particularly attacks sync folders of Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox, that it would proliferate to other PCs.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/8/2016