Consumers face rampant global malware spread
The inaugural report comprises detection data derived from users of the company’s cybersecurity detection and prevention platform who are located in over 180 countries around the world. Researchers from the company’s research arm, the Threat Intelligence Center (TIC), found that consumers faced numerous types of advanced threats on virtually every possible endpoint.
Trojan viruses were the most prevalent, with adware and miners rounding out the top three. Threats coming from phishing documents related to COVID-19 still found their way to users in 2021, most of them occurring in Microsoft Office documents with macros.
Key findings include the following:
- 2021 was the year of the miner – 58.40% of all Trojans detected last year were coin miners.
- The top five consumer ransomware threats were: WannaCry (40%), Cerber (20%), GandCrab (15%), Locky (10%), and LockBit (5%).
- Office Documents weaponization made up 30% of all behavioral detections, with LOLBins (20%), Scripts (13%), PowerShell (12%), and Obfuscation (15%) rounding out the top five.
- The top 10 most attacked countries, by average detection per user, include the United States, Russia, Brazil, China, and Poland, among others.
- The top detection categories were: Trojans (31.95%), Adware (28.60%), Miners (13.63%), Viruses & Worms (13.14%), PUPs (6.18%), HackUtilities (4.76%), and Ransomware (1.73%).
- Phishing threats leveraging ‘COVID-19’ were most prevalent in the following five countries: the United States, Poland, Colombia, Indonesia, and Thailand.
“Our research highlights just how critical it is for consumers to be protected across all endpoints,” says Kobi Kalif, General Manager of ReasonLabs. “Malware does not discriminate between large enterprise organizations or consumers using devices at home. Consumers must have access to next-generation AI-powered solutions like RAV Endpoint Protection (EDR). That is why ReasonLabs is democratizing enterprise-grade cybersecurity protection.”
Looking ahead for 2022, says the company, its researchers predict that infostealers, coin miners and cryptojackers, and ransomware will be the top threats consumers face this year. They also predict more targeting of the most unsecured consumers, such as teens and tweens, who are highly connected and starting to more widely use cryptocurrencies, buying into the metaverse and other digital assets.
For more, see “The State of Consumer Cybersecurity 2022.”
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