2016 will go down as a prime year for ransomware, as attacks have increased in quantity, variety, efficiency and sophistication.
This is according to Check Point H1 2016 Global and Regional Trends of the 'Most Wanted' Malware report, which provides an overview of the malware landscape in the top categories - ransomware, banking and mobile - based on threat intelligence data drawn from Check Point's ThreatCloud World Cyber Threat Map between January and June 2016.
Cyber criminals are now creating new and revamped ransomware using every possible type of attack vector, says the report.
Trend Micro says the occurrence of ransomware families nearly doubled, with an increase of 172% in the first half of 2016, compared to 2015, further establishing ransomware as a prevalent and pervasive threat.
The report says the malware world continues to develop rapidly and dynamically with new malware, and increasingly sophisticated abilities appear on a daily basis as the 'cat and mouse game' between attackers and defenders persists.
Symantec discovered more than 430 million new unique pieces of malware in 2015, up 36% from the year before.
Many old malware threats remain prominent, while at the same time newcomers arrived to wreak havoc this year, it adds. Conficker remains the world's most common malware, accounting for 17.4%, says the report.
"Malware demonstrates a long tail distribution with a small number of families responsible for a major part of the attacks, while thousands of other malware families are rarely seen."
The report also notes attackers still prefer using exploit kits to spread malware. "These kits, which have an alarming success rate, leverage vulnerabilities in the users' Web browsers or operating system to install malware without the user's consent or knowledge"
There has been a shift in the exploit kit arena since the beginning of 2016, says the report.
It indicates that Check Point has witnessed the decline of two of the largest exploit kits, Angler and Nuclear, and the rise of Neutrino and Rig Exploit Kits.
The report also reveals a new form of malware appeared in the mobile world in 2016 - botnets. A botnet is a group of devices (PCs, laptops, or mobile phones) controlled by hackers without the owners' knowledge, says the study.
Check Point detected botnets such as Viking Horde and DressCode, which managed to infiltrate Google Play and targeted hundreds of thousands of users.
According to Check Point, so far mobile botnets have been used mainly to generate fraudulent traffic and ad clicks.
However, they can be leveraged to achieve disruptive goals, such as distributed denial of service attacks, which can have a devastating effect on organisations of all sizes, it adds.
To provide organisations with the best level of protection, security experts must stay conversant about the ever-changing threat landscape, says the report.
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