Earlier today, Florida-based SaaS provider, AppRiver, LLC, released its Global Security Report for 2014. This report covers the top malware and spam trends in the world from last year, as well as the numbers of malware trapped by the company.
To begin, AppRiver reported that it trapped 893 million messages with viruses in the attachments, as well as 30.5 billion spam messages in 2014. The amount of messages with viruses in the attachments was nearly double what the company saw in 2013. Also interesting is that, for the first time, 69% of the spam messages AppRiver saw last year originated in Europe and North America. All in all, there were 761 unique cyber breaches during the past year that led to theft or compromise of 83,176,279 individual records.
As many of you know, 2014 was dubbed the “Year of the Breach,” due to the massive attacks on big box stores, as well as the Sony hack surrounding “The Interview” movie. AppRiver outlined the four main types of attack from 2014:
- Cyber World Attacks. This refers, of course, to the Sony hack, surrounding a controversial movie release. In this attack, hackers gained access to employee emails and company documents. The result of this attack was a US sanction against North Korea.
- Data Breaches. Particularly those on the box stores like Target, Home Depot, etc. The PoS malware scrapers for the Home Depot breach alone exposed nearly 56 million accounts and 53 million emails between April and September.
- Major Attacks on Banks, Ransomware. AppRiver reported that botnet-building activity was still at a high with the Citadel and Zeus Trojans, as well as the development of more sophisticated types of ransomware.
- Vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities included Heartbleed, POODLE and Shellshock.
So what does this rise in the number and severity of attacks mean? AppRiver report co-author, Jon French, spoke about this in a recent press release: “President Obama recently imposed sanctions on North Korea in response to their cyber attack on Sony Pictures. It is the first time the United States has issued sanctions against a country for isolated cyber attacks against a private U.S. company. And, it shows that hackers crossed a threshold that will no longer be tolerated.”
To view more of the AppRiver 2014 Global Security Report, please visit the site here.
