America based Cyber Security firm McAfee has divulged in its June 2017 Cyber Threat report that the total number of malware samples existing in the cyberspace has increased by 22 percent in the last four quarters. The security firm also concluded in its report that more than 670 million malware samples have hit the cyberspace in the past 6 months unlike 170 million recorded at the same time last year.
The report which was compiled by McAfee Labs also disclosed other stats related to the threats alluring in the digital world. The presence of these threats gives us a feeling that the cyber threat landscape is developing on a rapid note leaving organizations in all business verticals constantly at risk from cyber criminals.
Santa Clara-based McAfee confirmed that mobile malware has enjoyed even bigger growth, increasing by 79 percent over the same period to 16.7 million samples.
The report also reflects the evasion techniques which are being employed by cyber crooks to avoid detection and analysis.
McAfee classifies these techniques into three types- The first one happens to be Anti-security techniques, used to avoid detection by tools such as firewalls and freely available malware protection solutions. The second happens to be anti-sandbox techniques which are being used to detect automatic analysis and avoid software’s that keep a track of malware behavior. The 3rd and the last one happens to be an anti-analyst technique used to detect and fool malware analysts by duping monitoring tools.
Therefore, McAfee research says that these techniques are helping cyber criminals to stay anonymous for long periods of time on the network. One form of malware which has benefited from the use of sophisticated evasion techniques is the Dridex Banking Trojan.
McAfee Lab Quarterly Threat Report also highlights the fact that a mobile ransomware named Congur Ransomware is found targeting most of the Android users around the world. This ransomware is not only capable of holding data of the mobile and tablet user. But also has the potential to sneak into e-wallets on the mobile and transfer the money to bank accounts on foreign soil.
Note- McAfee says that its analytics team cataloged more than 244 new cyber threats every minute in the 1Q of 2017- equivalent to more than 4 every second.
