Ransomware Samples Grew 118 Percent—Other Cyber Attacks on the Rise
According to the McAfee Labs Threats Report, August 2019 ransomware samples grew by 118 percent over the past quarter. Researchers also discovered the rise of new ransomware families named Dharma, GandCrab, Anatova, and Ryuk; in particular, Anatova works to cipher all files through a distinct modular architecture. All in all, cyber attacks are on the rise around the world.
The McAfee Labs Threats Report, August 2019 codifies and presents investigative research on the threat landscape gathered by the McAfee Advanced Threat Research and McAfee Labs teams. The described the first quarter of 2019 as “the quarter of data dumps.” Indeed, a hacker identified as “Gnosticplayers” released close to 1 billion accounts to the Dark Web for sale. Additionally, the McAfee researchers found more than 2 billion stolen accounts credentials available on the criminal underground.
Cyber Attacks on the Rise Across the Globe
Other bad news included a 460 percent rise PowerShell usage as a tool of choice in targeted attacks; specifically, this proves common for targeted attacks of compromised servers. Simultaneously, new coin mining malware increased 29 percent while incidents targeting healthcare rose 18 percent.
Moreover, the number of targeted attacks on large enterprises rose to over 36. These attacks prove incredibly lucrative as they seek to compromise the most high-profile targets.
Fortunately, the report was not all doom and gloom. In March the Dream Market—the largest underground dark market—shutdown. Ironically, they suffered a significant volume of DDoS attacks in addition to numerous arrests of bad actors.
What You Can Do
You need to fortify your digital perimeter immediately against these cyber attacks. To start, you can read the full McAfee Labs Threats Report, August 2019 here. You can download the 2019 Buyer’s Guide of Endpoint Security here. It has critical information on the top solution providers in the field and their key capabilities.
Ben Canner
Ben Canner is an enterprise technology writer and analyst covering Identity Management, SIEM, Endpoint Protection, and Cybersecurity writ large. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Clark University in Worcester, MA. He previously worked as a corporate blogger and ghost writer. You can reach him via Twitter and LinkedIn.
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