McAfee Predicts that Cybercriminals will Increasingly Use Ransomware to Attack Businesses in 2014

Security vendor McAfee in its recently released 2014 A/NZ (Australia and New Zealand) report for threat predictions anticipates that cyber crooks will increasingly employ ransomware, malware and hacktivism in 2014 to move further into the profitable business marketplace.

McAfee has released its 2014 A/NZ threat report noting the drift towards ransomware and targeted attacks in 2014.

In 2014, it also expects to see an increase of new complex types of attacks on business PCs and mobiles but it is apparent that conventional tactics that have been employed for years shall also impact businesses.

According to news published by virus-aware.com in the fourth week of December 2013, Michael Sentonas, Global CTO for Security Connected at McAfee noted that a key trend was that ransomware like CryptoLocker that generally target consumers, will move further into the commerce space where they have the potentiality to brutally affect operations and cost enterprises a large sum of money.

He also said that they expect a surge in mobile malware to have an impact on businesses via their increasingly mobile labor forces that efficiently bars the user out of his or her device or machine so that the cyber crooks can access information.

Interestingly, McAfee also warns enterprises about increasing use of virtual currencies.

Virtual currencies like bitcoin, ripple, litecoin and others will be "the vehicle of choice" hackers will use while attempting to cheat public of their cash through ransomware. Why? Because virtual currencies offer cyber crooks unregulated and surreptitious payment structures.

Itworldcanada.com published a statement on 30th December, 2013 quoting Doug Cooke, Director of Sales Engineering at McAfee Canada as saying "hackers are getting smart."

When they create a new piece of malware, it gets targeted making it difficult for security firms to find illustrations of it and put up a defense. He noted that this is one reason why sandbox defenses are rising. Criminals are countering with malware which does not execute in a sandbox defeating an invasion for protection scanner. Hence techniques for dodging of malware will be fairly complicated.

And finally, as accords to McAfee social media e-threats will also surge in 2014.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/8/2014