Malware attacks across the globe have increased for the second year in a row, the latest edition of SonicWall’s annual Cyber Threat Report shows. In 2018, 10.52 billion malware attacks took place, a 33.4% increase compared to 2017. Ransomware attacks also increased, jumping 11% year-over-year. The numbers differed substantially from country to country, with some countries actually experiencing a decline in attacks. However, in the US both malware and ransomware attacks rose by 62%.
SonicWall furthermore noted that threat actors are moving away from malicious scripts and executables and instead favor attacks involving malicious PDFs and Microsoft Office documents. In addition, malware attacks targeting non-standard ports increased by 8.7%, while attacks on Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices also spiked.
Read more: Malware warning: Ransomware up, phishing down – and here’s how crooks are changing their tricks
