Guest blog provided by: Grayson Milbourne, Security Intelligence Director, OpenText | Webroot

Cyber threats are becoming increasingly difficult to detect. Cybercriminals are also becoming experts in deception. What does this mean for your business? How can you keep your family members safe online and reassure your customers you are protecting their data?

The threat research analysts at OpenText have complied the latest threat intelligence data to bring you the most cutting-edge and insightful information about the most recent cyber threats and what they mean for your customers.

Below is a summary and sneak peek from the full report.

Malware

Whether your customers operate a business or spend time online surfing the web, malware remains a concern. In the last year, 86% of malware remained unique to a PC, which has been consistent for the past few years. This implies attackers are obtaining a level of consistency in what they do to avoid being caught.

While the goal of spreading infection is top of mind for a bad actor, infection rates are not equal. When we examined the trends between businesses and consumers, there are some marked differences:

• 53% of consumer PCs were infected more than once, but businesses lag behind when migrating from Windows 7, leaving them more susceptible to infection.
• For medium-sized organizations (21 to 100 licensed PCs) infection rates are just over one-third (34%), infecting nine PCs on average.
• The manufacturing, public administration and information sectors experienced higher-than-average infection rates.

If their business falls within these industries or if you’re concerned your personal PC could be prone to infection, read the complete section on malware in the 2022 BrightCloud® Threat Report. It’s chock-full of insights into the differences in infection rates by type of PC, region and industry.

Skyrocketing ransomware payments will cost more than just your revenue

If they’re a small business owner, you don’t need to be told that they’ve suffered immensely throughout the pandemic. Exposure to ransomware is just another element to consider. Ransomware continues to plague small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). While this is not a new revelation, the smallest organizations, those with 100 employees or less, accounted for 44% of ransomware victims last year.

That’s nearly half.

Why do cybercriminals focus on SMBs? Attacks on larger enterprises and state-owned entities bring a level of publicity and attention that makes it harder for bad actors to achieve their goal of a financial payout. SMBs, given the lack of resources to respond, are more likely to pay and pay a lot. The year-end average for 2021 more than doubled the 2020 average, reaching $322,168. With limited resources at their disposal, the smallest of organizations are faced with tough decisions ahead when it comes to making ransomware payments and disclosing their decision to do so.

Law enforcement agencies are starting to gain headway on ransomware gangs. To learn how countries are banding together to shutdown notorious groups like REvil and DarkSide, check out the ransomware section of the full report.

High-risk URLs are phishing for your data in the most benign of locations

This study has discovered four million new high-risk URLs were in existence in 2021. To make matters worse, almost 66% of them involved phishing. Cybercriminals look to certain times of the year to execute their attacks. They are also keen to impersonate well-known brands to lure people into clicking on malicious links. The complete list of top brands that are most impersonated is available in the phishing section of the full report.

­­­Thwarting cyber threats through cyber resilience

“Businesses’ ability to prepare for and recover from threats will increase as they integrate cyber resilience into their technologies, processes, and people,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText CEO & CTO. “With security risks escalating worldwide and a persistent state of ‘unprecedented’ threats, compromises are inevitable. This year’s findings reiterate the need for organizations to deploy strong multi-layered security defenses to help them remain at the heart of cyber resilience and circumvent even the most creative cybercriminals.”

OpenText’s full report helps you and your customers uncover the latest cyber trends powered by their BrightCloud® Threat Intelligence platform.

To learn more and empower your cyber know-how, download the 2022 BrightCloud® Threat Report and then book a discovery call with our Climb Channel Solutions team to start protecting your customers with OpenText.

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