Asia Pacific endured the most cyberattacks in 2016

Asia Pacific endured the most cyberattacks in
2016

The region was a honeypot for a variety of
attacks, underscoring the urgent need for a cross-generational security
approach in the new year

SINGAPORE, March 15, 2017 – Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global
leader in cloud security solutions, today revealed that Asia Pacific (APAC)[1] encountered
the most cyberattacks in 2016 across multiple threat types, compared to other
regions[2]. The data were
derived from Trend Micro’s threat intelligence database. The company detects
and analyzes swathes of threats globally every year, including ransomware,
vulnerabilities, exploit kits, mobile apps, online banking software, and so on.
The APAC findings arrived following the company’s 2016 Global Roundup Report released
in late February. 

“It is hardly surprising that enterprises
today are facing a surge of known and unknown threats. Known threats are
growing – globally, we blocked over 80 billion attacks attempting to cause
havoc in 2016 alone. On top of dealing with those, the industry is increasingly
combatting unknown threats that are appearing at the rate of 500,000 per day.”
cautioned Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Trend Micro. “The
onslaught of mixed attacks emphasizes the importance of strengthening one’s
cybersecurity posture and adopting a cross-generational security approach
capable of handling both the influx of known attacks and the rise of unknown
threats designed to evade the conventional security software.” 

Five APAC Key Highlights:

·         27% of ransomware attacks were launched
targeting enterprises and individuals based in APAC – the highest of all
regions, followed by EMEA (25%) and Latin America (22%). 2016 marked a record
year for online extortion, with ransomware families growing by a whopping 752%
and netting US$1 billion in monetary gains.

In
2017, open source ransomware and ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) will continue
to make stealthy extortions accessible for cybercriminals running their own
ransomware operations. Given that, enterprises in the region are advised to
deploy multi-layered security solutions incorporating machine learning
capabilities to counter ransomware infections.

·         317,833 online banking malware were detected in
APAC, three times more than North America and six times more than Latin America
– the second and third places respectively. ATMs running on outdated systems
like Windows XP Embedded, which Microsoft ended security support for, proved to
be popular targets. Banking Trojans and skimmers were two preferred attack
methods by cybercriminals looking for quick cash.

·         In Q4 alone, Trend Micro blocked 435,709 exploit
kits in APAC, the most of all regions. The top three kits leveraged in the
region were RIG (~307k), Magnitude (~106k), and Sundown (~12k).  In
addition to their efficacy at directly taking advantage of unpatched system
vulnerabilities and zero-day vulnerabilities, exploit kits were also used to
deliver ransomware. Today, 18% of all known ransomware families arrive via
exploit kits.

·         Business Email Compromise (BEC) campaigns
acquired momentum and new victims in APAC last year. Brought to the public
attention by the Bangladesh Central Bank cyber heist, the average loss
resulting from a BEC attack hovers at US$140,000. Currently, BEC scams are
present in 92 countries worldwide; the most affected markets in the APAC region
are Hong Kong, Japan, and India. 

·         With high-profile distributed denial of
service (DDoS) attacks in the US and APAC, cyberattacks turning IoT devices
into zombie bots became a real-world problem in 2016. Most notably, the Mirai
botnet was made of around 100,000 connected objects. This was created as the
IoT devices didn’t have efficient security protocols to withstand infiltration.
Most likely these devices were still using default passwords that were set
during manufacturing, which could be easily broken.