At this time last year, Proofpoint’s threat intelligence team was seeing sustained malvertising campaigns distributing a variety of exploit kits, big increases in email campaigns carrying ransomware payloads, and a huge jump in phishing attacks via social media and mobile devices. But, what does 2018 have in store?
Last week we issued our Q4 2017 Threat Report and as the year ended, we saw a rapidly changing threat landscape. For instance:
- Emails containing malicious attachments jumped 300 percent. Of those emails, ransomware was the top payload, accounting for 57 percent of all malicious message volume.
- Cybercriminals always follow the money, and are going after cryptocurrency. For example, as the price of bitcoin increased, we saw a correlated increase in associated phishing attacks. That said, it’s also clear that criminals are paying attention to market fluctuations. In Q4, the use of bitcoin to denominate ransomware demands fell by 73 percent.
- Exploit kit attacks fell 31 percent from Q3, reaching their lowest level in years. THE TRICK accounted for 84 percent of all malicious spam involving a banking Trojan.
- Social media continued to be fertile ground for threats. Fraudulent customer support accounts or so-called “angler phishing” rose 30 percent. At the same time, phishing links in social media grew 70 percent from the previous quarter.
Hopefully you have a security budget, and are deciding how to best allocate those funds. To maximize your investment and while staying ahead of today’s threats; join me this Wednesday, January 24, at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET for our webinar How to Prepare for 2018’s Cyber Threats.
This live event will cover:
- Predictions for the 2018 threat landscape
- Key actions you can take to prepare your organization
- Top resources to help support your security efforts
We look forward to your attendance and answering any questions you may have regarding how to best improve your security posture in 2018.
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