American Global Cybersecurity Software McAfee says that every minute over 504 new cyber threats was being populated on the internet in the 1Q of 2019. Security experts from the Santa Clara based firm also suggest that there has been an increase in ransomware attacks in the 1Q of 2019 as cyber crooks were coming out with innovations and sophistication.
Furthermore, over 220 Billion credentials were stolen in cyberattacks in this year across the world by cyber crooks and this includes a 29% rise in coin mining malware and a 118% rise in ransomware samples.
As every infection leads to business disruption, a threat to consumers, and financial loss, McAfee says that such threats might prove disastrous to startups and SMBs if they fail to take precautionary measures well in advance from the beginning of their business.
While spear phishing tops as a major cyber threat in McAfee report, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) vulnerabilities are reported to be exposing data to ransomware attacks via brute force logins.
Among them, Dharma Ransomware happens to be the most active malware families of this quarter along with GandCrab, Ryuk, and Anatova.
Going with the Coin mining malware, McAfee report says that CookieMiner malware was discovered to be targeting Apple iOS users to steal bitcoins from e-wallets.
Note 1- A ransomware is a kind of malware variant which locks down files from access until a ransom is paid to users.
Note 2- With coin mining malware, computing resources are used by a fraudulently downloaded app to mine cryptocurrency- all without the knowledge of the hacker.
