According to a security report from Symantec, malware attacks that lock victims' computers – or worse, encrypt their files and data and force them to pay a ransom to regain access to them – increased by 500 percent during 2013.
The Symantec also reveals that targeted campaigns for cyberespionage or cybercrime exploded last year, up 91 percent from 2012.
Targeted attacks lasted on average three times longer than in 2012 – proving that so-called APT attacks are becoming more persistent.
Additionally, people working in public relations and personal assistants/secretaries were the two most targeted professions.
The rate of data breaches increased by 62 percent compared to 2012, exposing the details of 552 million identities.
Finally, each of the top eight data breaches that occurred in 2013 resulted in the leakage of tens of millions of data records.
