This year to date, Kaspersky’s systems have detected an average of 411 000 malicious files daily, and recorded a surge of 53% in attacks involving malicious files in various document formats, such as Microsoft Office and PDF.
This is according to the Kaspersky Security Bulletin 2023, which also shows that Windows has continued to be the primary target for cyber attacks, accounting for 88% of all malware-filled data detected daily.
Malicious families disseminated through various scripts and different document formats ranked among the top three threats, accounting for 10% of all malicious files detected daily.
Kaspersky’s detection systems discovered a rather significant daily increase of malicious files in various document formats – for instance, Microsoft Office, PDF, etc. – rising by 53% to about 24,000 files.
The growth may be linked to a rise in attacks utilising phishing PDF files, designed to pilfer data from potential victims, the company added.
Trojans remain the most widespread type of malware and this year saw an increase in the use of backdoors – growth from 15,000 detected files per day in 2022 to 40,000 in 2023.
According to Kaspersky backdoors stand out as one of the most hazardous types of trojans. Backdoors provide attackers with remote control over a victim’s system to carry out tasks such as sending, receiving, executing, and deleting files, as well as harvesting confidential data and logging computer activity.
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