Dubai, UAE: McAfee Inc. released its Threat report 2017 which examines the rise of script-based malware. The recent malicious software such as, WannaCry and NotPetya, assesses reported attacks across industries, and reveals growth trends in malware, ransomware, mobile malware, and other threats in Q2, 2017.
WannaCry and NotPetya meant to surpass the healthcare of public sector to report the greatest number of security incidents this year.
Both WannaCry and NotPetya attack campaigns, lacked the capabilities to decryption and payment to successfully extort victims’ ransoms and unlock their systems. However, their aim may have been disruption rather than extort victims.
“It has been claimed that these ransomware campaigns were unsuccessful due to the amount of money made,” said Chief Scientist for McAfee, Raj Samani.
“However, it is just as likely that the motivation of WannaCry and NotPetya was not to make money but something else. If the motive was disruption then both campaigns were incredibly effective.”
“We now live in a world in which the motive behind ransomware includes more than simply making money, welcome to the world of pseudo-ransomware.”
This Q2 rise in new malware is in part due to a significant increase in malware installers and the Faceliker Trojan. The latter accounted for as much as 8.9% of all new malware samples. The total number of malware samples grew 23% in the past four quarters to almost 723 million samples.
Facebook has emerged as a notable attack vector, Faceliker Trojan helped drive quarter’s 67% increase in new malware samples from the social media landscape.
This Trojan infects a user’s browser then hijacks their Facebook “likes” and promotes the content without their knowledge or permission.
Doing so at scale can earn money for behind Faceliker given the hijacked clicks can make a news article, video, website or ad appear more popular or trusted than it truly is.
“Faceliker leverages and manipulates the social media and app based communications we increasingly use today,” said Vice President for McAfee Labs, Vincent Weafer.
“By making apps or news articles appear more popular, accepted and legitimated among friends, unknown actors can covertly influence the way we perceive value and even truth. As long as there is profit in such efforts, we should expect to see more such schemes in the future.”
The health, public, and education sectors comprised more than 50% of total incidents in 2016-2017 worldwide.
McAfee Labs counted that there were 311 publicly disclosed security incidents in Q2, an increase of 3% over Q1 while 78% of all publicly disclosed security incidents in Q2 found public sector to be the most impacted North American sector over the last six quarters.
The overall healthcare data breaches are most likely the result of accidental disclosures and human error, cyberattacks on the sector continue to increase.
The trend began the first quarter of 2016 when numerous hospitals around the world sustained ransomware attacks. The attacks paralyzed several departments and, in some cases, the hospitals had to transfer patients and postpone surgeries. However, the healthcare overtook it in Q2 with 26% of incidents.
Weafer said, “Whether physical or digital, data breaches in healthcare highlight the value of the sensitive personal information organizations in the sector possess.”
“They also reinforce the need for stronger corporate security policies that work to ensure the safe handling of that information.”
Threat Hunting and Security Analytics at McAfee, Ismael Valenzuela said, “Threat hunters must quickly find artifacts or evidence that could indicate the presence of an adversary in the network, helping to contain and eliminate an attack before it raises an alarm or results in a data breach.”
