A unique sample of malware detected by BlackBerry’s technology is launched every minute, the security provider said in its fiscal Q4 Global Threat Intelligence Report.
More than 1.7 Million Attacks Stopped
BlackBerry said its technology stopped 1,757,248 malware-based cyberattacks during the 90-day period from September 1 to November 30, 2022. This includes 62 unique samples per hour, or one sample each minute during its fiscal Q4.
The most common cyber weapons used in attacks include the Emotet botnet, the Qakbot phishing threat, which hijacks existing email threads to convince victims of their legitimacy, and the increase in infostealer downloaders like GuLoader.
Commenting on the report Ismael Valenzuela, threat research & intelligence vice president at BlackBerry, said:
"Annual threat reports have been a fantastic way to provide insight into overall trends, but now more than ever, organizations need to make well-informed decisions and take prompt effective actions, using the latest actionable data."
Watch Out for RedLine
Highlights from the report include:
- RedLine was the most active and widespread infostealer in this last quarter. Post-pandemic work models have necessitated the need for businesses to support remote and hybrid employees, putting corporate credentials at greater risk of attack from malicious actors than ever before. RedLine is capable of stealing credentials from numerous targets including browsers, crypto wallets, and FTP and VPN software, among others, and selling them on the black market.
- It is a common misconception that macOS is a "safe" platform due to it being used less among enterprise systems. However, this could be lulling IT managers into a false sense of security. In Q4, the most-seen malicious application on macOS was Dock2Master which collects users' data from its own surreptitious ads. BlackBerry researchers found that 34% of client organizations using macOS had Dock2Master on their network.
