Report finds mobile malware growth almost 3-fold in Q2, and cyberespionage attacks target SMB companies

WOBURN, MA – July 30, 2015 — /BackupReview.info/ — Kaspersky Lab has published its Q2 cyber threats report highlighting key security incidents of the quarter and evaluating the Q2 cyber threat level. 51 percent of Web-born attacks blocked by Kaspersky Lab products were launched from malicious Web resources located in Russia. Followed closely by the USA, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Virgin Islands, Ukraine, Singapore, the UK and China.

Mobile threats

  • 291,800 new mobile malware programs emerged in Q2, which is 2.8 times greater than in Q1 of 2015.
  • There were 1 million mobile malware installation packages in Q2, which is seven times greater than in Q1 of 2015.

Mobile banking has remained a main target for mobile threats, especially Trojans. The Kaspersky Lab Q1 of 2015 report mentioned Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.OpFake.cc, which was capable of attacking no less than 29 banking and financial applications. The Trojan’s latest version that emerged in Q2 is now capable of attacking 114 (four times more) banking and financial applications. Its main goal is to steal the user’s login credentials with which to attack, among others, several popular email applications.

Attacks on the Web: financial threats

  • There were 5,900,000 notifications about attempted malware infections to steal money via online access to bank accounts – this is 800,000 notifications lower than in Q1.

In Q2 of 2015, Singapore took the lead in the percentage of Kaspersky Lab users attacked by banking Trojans with 5.3 percent. It was followed by Switzerland (4.2%), Brazil (4%), Australia (4%) and Hong Kong (3.7%). Noticeably, most countries in the top 10 list are technologically advanced and have a developed banking system, which draws the attention of cybercriminals.

Financial threats are not just limited to banking malware programs that attack the clients of online banking systems. Apart from banking malware (83%), financial threats are posed by Bitcoin miners (9%), as well as Bitcoin wallet stealers (6%) and keyloggers (2%).

Targeted cyberattacks
In Q2, the Kaspersky Lab Global Research and Analysis Team disclosed four cyberespionage campaigns: CozyDuke, Naikon, Hellsing and Duqu 2.0. The victim toll includes government agencies, commercial companies and other high-level targets.

The second quarter also showed that cybercriminals are interested in small and medium businesses – this type of businesses was targeted by the cyberespionage campaign Grabit. In this campaign, cybercriminals focused on such economic sectors as chemical, nanotechnologies, education, agriculture, mass media and construction.

“In Q2 we launched an important initiative called Securing Smart Cities which aims to help those responsible for developing smart cities to do so without forgetting about cybersecurity. If security measures are not planned at the development stage, it could have serious implications later, and retro-fitting security might not be a straightforward task,” comments Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at the Kaspersky Lab Global Research and Analysis Team.

Q2 in figures

  • According to Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) data, Kaspersky Lab solutions detected and repelled a total of 379.9 million malicious attacks from online resources located all over the world – this is 19 percent lower than in Q1.
  • During the three month period, an average of 23.9 percent of Internet users’ computers across the world came under a Web-borne attack at least once. This is 2.4 percentage points lower than in Q1.
  • In addition, 26,084,253 unique malicious objects were detected, which is 8.4 percent lower than in Q1. The script AdWare.JS.Agent.bg was the most widespread among such objects – this script is injected by adware programs into arbitrary web pages.

The complete text of the Q2 2015 IT threat evolution report is available on Securelist.com.

About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is one of the world’s fastest-growing cybersecurity companies and the largest that is privately-owned. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users (IDC, 2014). Since 1997 Kaspersky Lab has been an innovator in cybersecurity and provides effective digital security solutions and threat intelligence for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab is an international company, operating in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 400 million users worldwide.

Learn more at www.kaspersky.com

Media Contact
Stephen Russell
781.503.1833
stephen.russell@kaspersky.com

Marie Rourke (for Ingram Micro)
714.292.2199
marie@whitefoxpr.com

Pete Wermter
Acronis International GmbH
+1 650 255 4092
Pete.wermter@acronis.com

Source: Kaspersky

 

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