There has been an unprecedented number of cyberattacks and the malware count has reached an all-time in high in 2018, according to Kaspersky Lab.
The vendor’s solutions repelled almost two billion attacks launched from online resources and detected more than 21 million unique malicious objects from around the world in 2018. Its statistics show that, globally, 30% of user computers encountered an online malware attack at least once over the past year.
As for the META Region, Kaspersky Lab registered an 11% increase in malware infections, reaching an average of 1.5 million attacks per day and 575 million in one year. Experts witnessed an increase of 78% in phishing attacks targeting the region, totalling 20 million attacks in 2018. Ransomware attacks were also quite common the region, reaching 1.2 million attacks – a 128% increase from the previous year.
Fabio Assolini Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said: “Cities around the META region are becoming smarter are being pioneers in adopting the latest technologies for the betterment of their citizens. Companies are also digitally transforming to offer more serves online.
“This transformation undoubtedly brings convenience to us, however, with more and more devices being connected to the Internet we become more likely to face a cyberthreats online. We urge consumers to pay more attention to cybersecurity because sometimes they can be the weakest link.”
Overall globally, Kaspersky Lab’s detection technologies handled 346,000 new malicious files every day in the first 10 months of the year. The number and range of new malicious files detected on a daily basis is a good indicator of the interests of cybercriminals involved in the creation and distribution of malware. In 2011, Kaspersky’s technologies detected 70,000 new files a day and by 2017, the number had risen five-fold to 360,000.
In order to stay protected, Kaspersky Lab recommends the following:
- Pay close attention to and don’t open any suspicious files or attachments received from unknown sources
- Do not download and install applications from untrusted sources
- Do not click on any links received from unknown sources and suspicious online advertisements
- Create strong passwords and don’t forget to change them regularly
- Always install updates. Some of them may contain critical security issues fixes
- Ignore messages asking to disable security systems for Office software or antivirus software
- Use a robust security solution appropriate to your system type and devices like Kaspersky Internet Security or Kaspersky Security Cloud
