9.32 bn malware and 184 mn ransomware attacks

9.32 billion malware attacks and 184 million ransomware attacks in 2017 says Cyber Threat Report from SonicWall.

The malware attacks have increased by over 18.4 per cent year-over-year whereas ransomware attacks have decreased by 71.2 per cent in 2017. Ransomware variants, however, increased 101.2 percent.

SonicWall CEO Bill Conner said, “Our latest proprietary data and findings show a series of strategic attacks and countermeasures as the cyber arms race continues to escalate. By sharing actionable intelligence, we collectively improve our business and security postures against today’s most malicious threats and criminals.”

Last year by June alone, India faced cyber security threats worth over $4 billion. Financial sector witnessed a little less than 50% cyber attacks throughout the year.

Debashish Mukherjee, Country Director India & SAARC, SonicWall said, “A vast majority of internet traffic is encrypted but most of the vendor solutions are not even addressing that space. We observed this encrypted traffic is the major pain area for our customers; and hence we made deep-packet inspection, a fundamental part of our security architecture and have developed proprietary technology, RFDPI (Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection), which opens and checks every packet of data for threats. Our Capture technology has enabled us to proactively protect our customers from malware and ransomware attacks.”

“The risks to business, privacy and related data grow by the day — so much so that cybersecurity is outranking some of the more traditional business risks and concerns,” added Conner.