“Fileless malware attacks, or incidents where the malicious payload doesn’t touch the disk, but is executed directly in memory instead, are on the rise, Microsoft says. Attacks that leverage fileless techniques are not new, but were recently adopted by a broader range of malware. A couple of years ago, the Kovter Trojan was well known for the use of this infection method, but various threat actors, ransomware, and even crypto-mining malware adopted it since. Last November, a Barkly report suggested that fileless assaults were ten times more likely to succeed compared to other infection methods. Now, Microsoft says that the move to fileless techniques was only the next logical step in the evolution of malware, especially with antivirus solutions becoming increasingly efficient at detecting malicious executables.”
Source: Fileless Malware Attacks on the Rise, Microsoft Says | SecurityWeek.Com