Every year, WatchGuard Technologies publishes a quarterly report on cybersecurity. The first quarter of 2019 saw a huge increase in malware compared to the last quarter of 2018.
According to the report, the cyberattacks used, among others, malware files from Microsoft Office, Mac , and web applications. As WatchGuard's chief technology officer states, the results of the report make it clear how threatening the security situation is today and how urgent the need for solutions is.
WatchGuard reports are designed to provide the risk insights, research, and security best practices that organizations need to defend against attacks and better protect their data.
The key findings of WatchGuard's 2019 report are as follows.
Microsoft Office malware files were the most popular in the first quarter of 2019. These types of documents were detected throughout the quarter, with viruses even ranking on lists of top attacks.
MacOS malware appeared in the third quarter of 2018 and continued to grow dynamically through 2019. This is proof that the theory that Mac software is invulnerable is, to say the least, unfortunate.
Web application attacks have increased significantly, with some of these attacks earning a spot on WatchGuard's top list and others representing 10% of all web application attacks overall.
DNS filtering stops over 5 million malicious sites. Many sites can be difficult to detect and tackle, so DNS-level filtering is crucial to preventing users from being tricked by malware applications.
Fileless threats are similarly on the top attack lists , as reported by WatchGuard.
Mimikatz malware remains the leading threat. It is primarily used for password theft. This makes it imperative to replace passwords with more complex ones. Additionally, with cybercriminals increasingly focusing on credential theft, organizations should consider setting up multi-factor authentication.
It's worth noting that the WatchGuard Internet Security Report is based on anonymized Firebox data, from a subset of active devices, whose owners have opted in to sharing data to support Threat Labs' research efforts.
