Kaspersky has recently concluded in its survey report that financial malware related cyber attacks increased by 22% in the 4Q of 2016. As per the report, the said malware is said to have the capability to steal money or valuable financial information and has affected more than 319,000 users so far.
Kaspersky Lab which revealed these details in its Cyber Threats Landscape Report said that the number of attacks increased during the holiday season, specifically during the days of Black Friday Deals, Cyber Monday Deals and Christmas period last year.
Hence, Security analysts at Kaspersky suggest that cyber criminals are trying to tie their cyber attack campaigns to specific holiday dates, as users will be super-enthusiastic to shop during this season.
The report also suggests that in the year 2014, there was a slight decrease in such malicious campaigns. But again, cyber crooks started investing in developing malware capable of stealing financial data, such as credit card info from early 2015 which resulted in the rise of cyber attacks by the end of 2015.
In 2016, hackers went a step ahead by investing in malware which offers them finance related data and targeted shopping enthusiasts during the holiday season i.e. October, November, and December.
As per the details available with our Cyber Security Insiders, cyber criminals used around 30 families of banking Trojans, out of which 5 are most popular- Zbot, Nymaim, Shiotob, Gozi, and Neurevt.
Kaspersky’s Lab report confirmed that the above said five Trojans were responsible for online payment frauds against 92.35% of shoppers during the holiday period and was worth $6.9 billion.
Note- Online payment Fraud is where cyber criminals divert the payment paid for a product or service to their wallets through payment malpractices or create web pages selling fake products to eventually dupe customers.
