Trend Micro report reveals a total of 13.8 billion cyber attacks in February, about 700 million
more than in December 2022
The February Fast Facts report from Trend Micro, a world leader in cybersecurity solutions, points to an increasing trend in digital threats and reveals that the Brazil (29.9%) was the most attacked country in the Americas by ransomware in the past and the second on the world stage – even ahead of the United States (24%), third in the ranking led by India (33.4%) in 2022.
In addition to India, Brazil and the United States, the top 5 ransomware attacks in 2022 included Turkey (13.6%) and France (10%), fourth and fifth, respectively. Last year, 15.76 million ransomware attacks were recorded.
Taking into account the different types of threats, Trend Micro blocked, in February, a total of 13.8 billion cyber attacks, about 700 million more than in the last month of 2022. The number represents 9.4% of the volume of attacks last year, which was a record when reaching the mark of 146 billion and surpass the records of 2016, when there were 82 billion cyberattacks.
Total Threats Detected by Trend Micro Solutions – Dec 2022/ Feb 2023
Beginning of 2023:
Ransomware threats have been on the rise in recent months. In January 2022, Trend Micro detected 955,486 ransomware attacks, about 5,100 more than in December 2022, when there were 950,364 such records. In February, they grew even more, reaching almost 1 million 465 thousand ransomware threats.
Total Threats Detected by Trend Micro Solutions – Dec 2022/ Feb 2023
In February, Thailand was the country with the highest number of attacks of this type, rising from 28.1% in December to 39.1%. Russia (13.9%) has re-emerged in the Top 5 after months of decline. The United States, which in December and January ranked second, with 20% of occurrences, fell to third place, with 13.4% of attacks. Taiwan has seen a sharp drop in ransomware reports this year, dropping from 16% in December to 7% in February.
Main ransomware targets:
In February, ransomware attacks on the banking sector increased significantly, pushing the segment to the top of the rankings, followed by retail and government. In addition, the technology industry has entered the top 5 most targeted sectors by cybercrime as well as the telecommunications sector.
Ransomware groups are becoming more sophisticated, changing names and diversifying their tactics to hit larger and larger targets in order to increase their profit margins. In the future, these groups may move into other areas to monetize initial access, such as stock fraud, corporate email compromise (BEC), money laundering, and cryptocurrency theft.
In 2022, LockBit and BlackCat were the top detected ransomware families. Webshell was the most recurring malware in the year, rising 103% compared to 2021 numbers. Emotet registrations came in second, experiencing something of a resurgence.
The top five ransomware families in January 2023 were WannaCry, Locky, BlackCat, Cerber, and Gandcrab. In February, the same families marked the cybercrime scene, with slight changes in frequency. WannaCry and Locky followed in the top two positions, followed by BlackCat and Cerber, while Gandcrab was replaced by Blackbasta, which had 247 reported cases.
The “Fast Facts” report is released by Trend Micro's research team with updates on the threat landscape, based on the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network (SPN) solution, which analyzes the data security infrastructure. In addition to SPN sensors, data collected also came from researchers at Trend Micro, the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) team, the Threat Hunting teams, TippingPoint, Mobile Application Reputation Service (MARS), Smart Home Network (SHN ) and IoT Reputation services.
For more details on the February 2023 Fast Facts report, visit ON HERE.
