India saw largest spike in malware attacks in 2020: Report

India experienced the largest spike in malware attacks with the monthly volume more than tripling between September and October said a new report from cybersecurity firm SonicWallThe country saw more than 25 million malware attacks in December 2020 said the 2021 SonicWall Cyber Threat ReportThe pandemics workfromhome reality resulted in an unprecedented change for organisations as they fought to defend exponentially greater attack surfaces from cybercriminals armed with powerful Cloudbased tools cloud storage and endless targetsAs working environments evolved so did the methods of threat actors and other motivated perpetrators as detailed in the report2020 offered a perfect storm for cybercriminals and a critical tipping point for the cyber arms race SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner said in a statementThe pandemic along with remote work a charged political climate record prices of cryptocurrency and threat actors weaponising cloud storage and tools drove the effectiveness and volume of cyberattacks to new highsThe report highlights how Covid19 provided threat actors with ample opportunity for more powerful aggressive and numerous attacks thriving on the fear and uncertainty of remote and mobile workforces navigating corporate networks from homeThere is no code of conduct when it comes to cybercriminals their methods of attacks and the selection of their targets said ConnerThe findings showed that there was a 62 per cent increase in ransomware globally and a 158 per cent spike in North AmericaIt suggests that cybercriminals are using more sophisticated tactics and more dangerous variants like Ryuk to earn an easy paydayFirst identified in August 2018 Ryuk did not appear outside of North America Europe or Asia as late as January 2020The following month Ryuk began climbing the charts eventually overtaking topranking Cerber ransomwareWith 1099 million cases detected worldwide Ryuk was logged nearly every eight seconds in September alone said the reportThe research shows the shift to employees working from home fulltime could be directly linked to the increased utilization of Office files and PDFs as malicious vehicles armed with phishing URLs embedded malicious files and other dangerous exploitsNew SonicWall data indicates a 67 per cent increase in malicious Office files in 2020Once thought to be a dying attack vector after the industrys major mining operation boarded its online service cryptojacking is back thanks to rising cryptocurrency values and its appeal of concealed payoutsTotal cryptojacking for 2020 set records with 819 million hits a 28 per cent increase from last years 641 million total said the reportThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever