Ransomware attacks see huge year-on-year rise

Malware and ransomware are both on the rise according to new global figures from the security firm SonicWall.

The cybersecurity company detected a 44 per cent increase in the amount of malware infecting users’ machines between January and October of this year.

At the same time, Ransomware which is a type of malware that encrypts all of the data on a victim’s machine in exchange for a ransom paid in cryptocurrency, saw a 117 per cent jump during the same period.

Over 300,000 new attack variants were spotted by SonicWall so far in 2018 which breaks down to 1,095 new attacks each day. Surprisingly, 50,000 of these attack variants have never been seen before.

Ransomware is no longer limited to enterprises

SonicWall also revealed that its web apps experienced 108 per cent more attacks to reach a total of 93,816 threats this year when compared to 2017. Additionally, encrypted threats which are “the hardest for the average web user to detect’, were up by 62 per cent.

The firm also warned that businesses of all sizes should keep a more watchful eye on their cybersecurity posture because ransomware is “no longer limited to large enterprises”.

SonicWall’s recently announced Capture Cloud Platform is designed to counter these rising threats.

The firm’s Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand, Amit Singh explained how its new solution can help protect both enterprises and SMBs during their cloud migration, saying:

“Investing in hybrid cloud strategies has allowed organisations to harness the power of public and private clouds for their IT projects, however they require solutions that help simplify and secure their cloud migration initiatives. Whatever project organisations choose the cloud for, SonicWall helps to protect enterprises and SMBs with their cloud migration while simultaneously giving them more visibility and control of their environments.”