In the last two years, malicious programs like WannaCry, Petya and Ryuk have made it abundantly clear that malware and cyberattacks are entirely capable of bringing companies with inadequate cybersecurity to the brink of a shutdown and even driving them to bankruptcy.
During 2018, the Hornetsecurity Security Lab noticed a massive increase in emails with harmful attachments. The Emotet, Hancinator, Zeus and Trickbot trojans gave companies particular cause to be wary – in terms of email volume, these were among the biggest malware campaigns of 2018. A breakdown of malware attacks and their monthly incidence throughout 2018 is shown in the infographic. Hornetsecurity has analyzed the individual campaigns and painted a clear picture of what formats and files were concealing malicious software.
Ransomware, cryptominers, and spyware can lurk in Word documents as well as behind web links, and are among the varieties of malware most favored by cybercriminals. While malware sent via indiscriminate mass email (also known as spam) has declined sharply in recent years, businesses in particular are more and more often subjected to targeted and complex attack campaigns. Hackers are increasingly using social engineering and spear phishing to sneak malware onto company operating systems.
More Information:
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- Managed Security Services from Hornetsecurity for defense against malware
- Blog Post: Cybercriminal’s favorite
- Further information about Cybersecurity can be found in the Hornetsecurity Knowledge Base.