Gadget

Digital minefield 
deepens

The Kaspersky cybersecurity team is detecting over 400,000 malicious files per day.

This was the most dramatic information revealed during the 8th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META conference, held recently in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The company’s experts discussed the biggest cyberthreats specifically targeting governments, enterprises, businesses and industrial organisations, while forecasting the trends that will influence the cybersecurity landscape in the future.  Close attention was paid to Kaspersky’s Cyber Immunity approach as a way to create solutions that are virtually impossible to compromise and that minimise the number of potential vulnerabilities.

“Considering how quickly the threat landscape is expanding its boundaries and the number of new devices appearing in users’ daily lives, it’s not surprising that we were detecting over 400,000 malicious files per day and this number is growing year by year,” said Dr. Amin Hasbini, head of the Global Research & Analysis Team (GReAT) for Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META), at Kaspersky. “It is crucial for individuals, businesses, and governments to take proactive steps to protect their systems and data from these evolving threats. This includes implementing strong cybersecurity measures, staying vigilant against emerging threats, and keeping up to date with the latest security trends and best practices.”

A gradual rise in phishing attacks

Diving deeper into social engineering cyberattacks, Kaspersky shared insights on phishing attacks which are most common in the META region. Comparing Q1 2022 to Q1 of 2023, Egypt (49%), UAE (33%), Qatar (88%), Oman (28%), Kuwait (27%) and Bahrain (20%) saw an increase in phishing attacks on users. On the other hand, phishing attacks in Saudi Arabia saw a slight decrease of 1% in Q1 of 2023 as compared to the same time period in 2022.

In the African region, phishing attacks grew in South Africa (7%), Nigeria (53%) and Kenya (87%) in Q1 of 2023 as compared to Q1 of 2022. Turkey (53%) witnessed an 53% increase in Q1 of 2023 as opposed to Q1 2022.

Ransomware

According to Kaspersky’s data, the number of organisations that faced ransomware mainly dropped in Q1 2023 in the META region in comparison with the same period in 2022. The decline was observed in the Middle East region, where the number of B2B ransomware detections dropped by 61%. Over the same period ransomware attacks also dropped in Turkey, with a 59% decrease, as well as in Africa (a 65% drop).

“While we see a decrease in ransomware in the META region, that doesn’t mean that it becomes less dangerous. We can clearly see a distinctive trend in ransomware getting more sophisticated and targeted, exposing victims to more threats. In recent years, ransomware groups have come a long way from being scattered gangs to businesses with distinctive traits of full-fledged industry. They continue to evolve by adopting techniques, such as developing cross-platform ransomware, embedding self-propagation capabilities and even using zero-day vulnerabilities that were previously affordable only for APT actors. It explains why it remains one of the most crucial threats for business despite the detection numbers decreasing”, comments Dmitry Galov, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky. “This is a global trend, while in those regions that put more efforts into proper protection measures on governmental and organisational levels the decrease is more dramatic. For countries with a lower level of cyber readiness ransomware remains a critical threat and the decrease is less prominent.”

Fast paced growth of trojan banking

New malware families and cyberattack campaigns have contributed to a rampant rise of Trojan banking attacks in Q1 of 2023 as compared to Q1 of 2022. The highest increase was in Turkey (238%). Overall, the Middle East too saw an increase in trojan banking attacks in the first quarter of 2023 – Kuwait (218%), Egypt (186%), Saudi Arabia (168%), Oman (115%), Qatar (99%), UAE (67%) and Bahrain (33%). Nigeria (268%) and Kenya (129%) also posted an increase. 

Anticipated trends that will impact the cybersecurity landscape in META

Major drivers of growth in cybercrime are expected to be Crimeware and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).

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