The company blocked more than 43 billion threats in the period, against just over 29 billion in the first three months of 2022
The March Fast Facts report from Trend Micro, a world leader in cybersecurity solutions, reveals an increase in the number of cyberattacks in the first quarter of the year, which poses a considerable threat to the security of computer systems and networks. The month of March had the highest number of attacks of 2023 so far – 15.8 billion -, closing the quarter with 43.3 billion threats detected: an increase of 31% compared to the same period last year.
Threats Blocked by Trend Micro Solutions – January to March 2023
In addition to the overall increase in attacks in March, of 12% compared to the previous month, the file detection rate was also the highest since the beginning of 2023, with the blocking of 8 billion, 850 thousand malicious files, just over 1 billion and 250 thousand more than in February.
ransomware
The number of ransomware attacks, which had increased from January to February, dropped in March, falling from 1 million 465 thousand occurrences to 1 million 228 thousand. Quarter sees 12% drop in ransomware cases, compared to the same period last year, with a total in 3 million 648 thousand ransomware attacks in 2023 against 4 million 440 thousand in 2022.
Ransomware Attacks Detected by Trend Micro Solutions – January to March 2023
In March, Thailand maintained the top position in the ranking of countries most affected by ransomware (46.1%), followed by the United States, which had 14.1% of threats, Taiwan and Turkey, with 8.6% and 4.3%, respectively . Japan, with 2.7% of records, completes the top 5.
Countries most attacked by ransomware – March 2023
The banking sector continued to be the most targeted by cybercriminals, with 1,580 attacks in March, followed by industry and retail, with 1,207 and 1,043 attacks, respectively. The transportation (845) and government (814) sectors also experienced a significant number of ransomware threats in the period.
Segments most attacked by ransomware – March 2023
In March, the top detected ransomware families were WannaCry, Blackbasta, Locky, Cerber, and Gandcrab. Interestingly, WannaCry leads activity in 2023, indicating its persistence in the threat landscape. However, there was a significant increase in the occurrence of Blackbasta in March, which suggests growth in its actions or effectiveness.
While Trend Micro researchers discovered a new ransomware family in February, the creation of new families appears to have slowed down, with just 26 created in 2022, up from the 78 identified in 2021, and the only 8 created in Q1 2023. Attackers seem to be more interested in reusing high-profile families, particularly those using the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) business model.
SPAM
Email attacks also remain an important vector for cybercriminals. In February and March, the top 5 types of spam attachments detected by Trend Micro tools were similar, but with some ranking changes. In the two months, EXE-type attachments were the most used, with just over 212,000 and 174,000 records, respectively. The second most common attachment was DOCX, with around 117,000 counts in February and 120,000 in March. DOC and PDF files switched positions between the two months, taking turns between third and fourth place, and HTML completed the Top 5.
Top file types sent via email, according to Trend Micro solutions
Brazil
O government sector continues to be the most attacked by cybercrime in Brazil, followed by segments of education, technology and health. In March, the energy sector replaced the financial sector in the top 5 most targeted segments in the country.
Main targets of cybercrime in Brazil – February/March 2023
O Brazil also remains the country that sends the most threats of extortion and sextortion (from the English term sextorsion), which is sexual blackmail, with 836 records against 809 in the United States. This type of attack showed a considerable drop in March, since 1,096 cases had been registered in the country in January and 1,845 in February. The study is based on unique IP addresses.
Countries with the most cases of extortion and sextortion – March 2023
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 March 2023 Fast Facts report, visit ON HERE.
