If you’re a college hoops fan, you no doubt agonized over getting your bracket right. And just when you thought you had it all figured out—then, boom—a team like Duke makes an early exit throwing everything into disarray. The latest malware threats are a lot like March Madness — full of surprises.
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Cyber threats are unpredictable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare. By keeping on top of trends and being adaptable, you’ll have a better chance of squashing threats and scoring your own slam dunk against cyber crooks.
Malware Trends That Will Challenge Businesses This Year
In an ever-changing threat climate, you need to be ready for anything — including:
- More targeted malware. Businesses are now attacked by ransomware every 40 seconds—up from every two minutes in the first quarter of 2016. The healthcare sector, in particular, is a prime target because of its heavy reliance on data for day-to-day operations. According to one report, the healthcare sector suffers 20 data loss incidents a day through ransomware attacks.
- Rise of ad fraud. With ad fraud, botnets click on online ads, forcing advertisers to pay for fake traffic. By one estimate, criminals make off with $1 out of every $3 spent on digital advertising. This translates into big bucks, with losses to advertisers predicted to reach over $16 billion this year.
- Botnet threats. Bots account for a disturbing 56% of all website traffic. They spam businesses, send out phishing emails on a massive scale, and launch Distributed Denial of Service attacks to wreak havoc in the digital world.
- Changes in distribution tactics. Cybercriminals know they have to get creative if they want to sucker you into spreading a malware infection. A common way is through contaminated Javascript, Word, and Excel files. Crafty hackers are also using fake download buttons and social media to get at your information.
- Smarter Android malware. Android controls over 85% of the smartphone market, making it a ripe target for hackers. This mobile malware is often spread by unwitting users downloading free apps from non-authorized stores. But hackers are getting more sophisticated and malware has even found its way into the Google Play Store. With the increase of BYOD, businesses need to be ever more vigilant and enforce strict mobile security policies.
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Use Advanced Threat Protection to Stay Ahead of the Criminals
Malware is getting smarter and more precise, but it’s beatable with a little preparation. An advanced threat protection (ATP) solution can give you an advantage with a three-point strategy focused on:
- Prevention. First, make it difficult to break through to your data with firewalls, secure email gateways, anti-virus and signature detection technologies, and application controls among other cybersecurity solutions.
- Detection. With the cybersecurity climate in a constant state of flux, you need ways to discover new threats. Sandboxing isolates and tests unknown threats to determine if they’re dangerous — and creates actionable threat intelligence to wield in future attacks.
- Mitigation. Once you’ve identified a threat, you need to minimize damage by containing it, analyzing it, removing it and updating the threat intelligence shared among cybersecurity tools.
With an advanced threat protection strategy — like the Fortinet ATP framework, for example — you can stay in the game and fight malware to the final buzzer. Contact Xiologix to learn more.
