Microsoft Security Intelligence Report reveals a rise in Phishing attacks

Microsoft has released a new Security Intelligence Report that reveals a bump in Phishing attack numbers. The report highlights the attacks that happened from January to December 2018. The report also revealed a decline in Malware related attacks that happened during the same period.

According to the report, Phishing Attacks have increased by 250% in 2018 while Malware attacks have declined by 34%. Microsoft notes that attackers moving to multiple points of attacks during the same campaign, switching between URLs, domains, and servers when sending e-mails and hosting phishing forms. Microsoft also saw “an increase in the use of compromised accounts to further distribute malicious emails both inside and outside an organization.” Microsoft claims that their teams have scanned over 470 billion emails sent and received by Office 365 customers.

On the other hand, malware attacks including crypto attacks and ransomware attacks have declined in 2018. Microsoft says that malware attacks have decreased by 34% which indeed is good news. The company reached at this number by analyzing “6 5 trillion threat signals that go through the Microsoft cloud every day.”

This approach allows them to leverage the processing power of hundreds of thousands of computers instead of one or two Even when a minor infection is discovered, the anonymous nature of cryptocurrency complicates efforts to track down the responsible parties.

Microsoft SIR team

Moving to crypto mining, Ireland, Japan, the United States, and China encountered the lowest coin mining rates in 2018. That said, crypto mining, like malware, experienced an overall drop of 36% in 2018.

Via: BleepingComputer