Trend Micro, one of the leading cybersecurity companies in the world, released the results of the "Roundup" report, which analyzes the global cyber threat scenario during the first half of 2019 The report shows that Brazil is the second country with the most ransomware threats , concentrating 10,57% of global threats, behind only the United States, which represent 11,10%. The other countries that make up the Top 5 in number of ransomware threats are India, Vietnam and Turkey.
According to Trend Micro, the global total of ransomware detected from 2016 to June 2019 was over 1.8 billion. This value is calculated from the combination of all ransomware-related email, file and URL threats.
“Cybercriminals are creating increasingly advanced and stealthy tactics to bypass security systems, especially when it comes to ransomware,” comments Franzvitor Fiorim, Trend Micro's technical director. "They have also become more discriminating with their victims, strategically choosing companies that have high financial performance and sensitive data, with the goal of maximizing the rescue value."
email threats
Brazil is also prominent in the ranking of threats disseminated by email, ranking third with more than 1.1 billion threats blocked by Trend Micro. The United States are also leaders in this category, followed by China.
“Email remains a major threat vector as with strategies such as social engineering it is relatively easy to fool unsuspecting users. To protect yourself, it is important to always check the sender of the emails and only click on links and attachments that you are sure are legitimate”, says Fiorim. "Ensuring that everyone has a basic understanding of digital security is an important form of prevention as it reduces the human error that is often involved in email infections."
malicious URLs
Another data that stands out in the report is the relationship between malicious URLs and affected victims – each URL has the potential to reach 14.5 users, according to the numbers. In this first half, there were 5.5 million hits, placing Brazil in 16th position in the ranking of victims of malicious addresses blocked by Trend Micro.
Malware detected
With over 6.1 million malware, Brazil was ranked 11th in the ranking of countries with the highest number of detected threats. The country is also in the top 20 in the amount of banking malware, with almost 3,000 detected threats.
Malicious Apps
Regarding malicious applications, Brazil was also highlighted, occupying the Top 15 in this category. There were almost 3 million apps available in the country evaluated in the first semester, and of these, more than 22 thousand were malicious.
“One type of threat that has become very common in the application arena is adware. It disguises itself as a regular app, usually a camera or games app, but displays advertisements that are difficult or impossible to close, and uses techniques to make it difficult to remove the app, such as hiding its icon. Checking the evaluations of the applications and the developer are good precautionary and security tactics”, concludes the director.
Access on here the complete study with the main global findings.
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