Kaspersky - 2.2Bn Malicious Attacks Intercepted During Q1 of 2015

According to Kaspersky's 'IT Threat Evolution Report' Q1-2015, an overwhelming 2.2 Billion+ notorious attacks on computers and mobiles were mounted during Q1-2015, twice the quantity found in Q1 of 2014 and hence Q1 of 2015 has been described as "monumental" for malware.

Kaspersky noted that it prevented 469 million assaults launched from online resources located across the world which is a third (32.8%) over in the period of Q1 of 2014 and above 93 million unique URLs were identified as malicious by antivirus solutions which is 14.3 above those seen in Q1-2014.

Amusingly, Russia remains a nexus for cybercriminal activities. Kaspersky revealed that 40% of online attacks neutralized were done with the help of malicious online resources situated in Russia. Last year, Russia stood first jointly with US as two nations accounting 39% of online attacks between them.

Kaspersky says that during last few years, it has observed several advanced cyberthreat actors seeming to be fluent in various languages like Chinese, English, Russian, Spanish or Korean. Kaspersky said in its new report that in 2015 they have reported on cyberthreats "speaking" French and Arabic and the question is "who will be next?"

The report also talks about the other top threats in Q1-2015 including 'The Equation Group' which it rates as an extremely advanced cyber-espionage threat till date.

The group has networked with other powerful groups like Flame and Stuxnet for many years. One of the modules of the group can be used to modify hard drive firmware. Equation has successfully infected computers of thousands of victims in Russia, Syria, Iran, US, Afghanistan and other countries since 2001. Kaspersky says in its report that its victims are mainly from sectors like telecommunications, government and diplomatic institutions, energy, etc.

Experts of Kaspersky intercepted the activity of a previously unknown group carrying out targeted attacks at the time of probing an assault in the Middle East. This unknown group was called Desert Falcons. The report reveals that it is the foremost Arabic-speaking group which is seen launching complete cyber espionage attacks and its work seems to be connected with the political situation in the region.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/21/2015