Welcome to a special edition of Hawaii Science Digest.  In this post, we’ll examine the rapidly expanding cyber attacks against this country’s online businesses and government agencies.  Views expressed in this cyber security report are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Content supplied by https://blog.malwarebytes.com.  Malwarebytes is a leading online security company specializing in cyber crime and cyber security.

Accessed on 08 May 2019, 2355 UTC,

Reporter:  Wanda Zamora (Malwarebytes Labs).

Source (via email):

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2019/04/labs-cybercrime-tactics-and-techniques-report-finds-businesses-hit-with-235-percent-more-threats-in-q1/?utm_source=double-opt-in&utm_medium=email-internal-b2c&utm_campaign=EM-B2C-2019-May1-newsletter&utm_content=cybercriminals

Please click link to download the complete report.

Here are the main points covered in the report:

According to the “Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques Report” from Malwarebytes Labs, cyber criminals are shifting their efforts from private accounts and cryptomining schemes to the more profitable exploitation of businesses that deal with huge amounts of private, sales, medical, and government data.  Reporter Wanda Zamora says the security of your private information is in grave danger because “businesses are failing to shore up that data.”

Here are the highlights of that report.  I urge you to read the full report and take steps to protect your personal, medical, and financial information.

• Emotet continues to target enterprises. Detections of Trojans (Emotet’s parent category) on business endpoints increased more than 200 percent since Q4 2018, and almost 650 percent from the same time last year.
• Ransomware has gained rapid momentum, with an increase of 195 percent in business detections from Q4 2018 to Q1 2019. Compared to the same time last year, business detections of ransomware have seen an uptick of over 500 percent, due in large part to a massive attack by the Troldesh ransomware against US organizations in early Q1.
• Cryptomining against consumers is essentially extinct. Marked by the popular drive-by mining company CoinHive shutting down operations in March, consumer cryptomining has significantly decreased both from the previous quarter and the previous year.
• Mobile and Mac devices are increasingly targeted by adware. While Mac malware saw a more than 60 percent increase from Q4 2018 to Q1 2019, adware was particularly pervasive, growing over 200 percent from the previous quarter.
• The US leads in global threat detections at 47 percent, followed by Indonesia with nine percent and Brazil with eight percent.

To learn more about threats and trends in cybercrime in Q1, download the full report:

Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques Q1 2019“

For the latest trends in cyber security, science, technology, medicine, health, environment, artificial intelligence (AI), please visit this blog daily.

Until next time,

Russ Roberts

https://atomic-temporary-155977078.wpcomstaging.com

https://hawaiidigest.science.blog (backup/alternate website)