McAfee Threats Report April 2021 reveals 3.1 million external attacks on cloud users, mobile malware growth and more

In Q4, the firm observed an average of 648 threats per minute, which is an increase of 60 threats per minute (10%) over Q3.

Representational image. (Pixabay)

Cybersecurity firm McAfee has released its McAfee Threats Report: April 2021, wherein it has detailed the growth of malware for mobile and cloud users, external attacks and more. The report talks about malware and the evolution of cyber threats in the third and fourth quarters of 2020. In Q4, the firm observed an average of 648 threats per minute, which is an increase of 60 threats per minute (10%) over Q3. in addition, Q3 and Q4 saw COVID-19-related cyber-attack detections increase by 240% in Q3 and 114% in Q4.

For mobile users, malware grew 118% in Q4 in part due to an increase in SMS Reg samples.”The HiddenAds, Clicker, MoqHao, HiddenApp, Dropper and FakeApp strains were the most detected mobile malware families,” stated MacAfee in the latest release. In addition, the ransomware grew in volume 69% from Q3 to Q4. As per the report, some of the top ransomware families found were Cryptodefense. REvil, Thanos, Ryuk, RansomeXX and Maze groups.

However, the staggering numbers came from the attacks on cloud users. The cyber security company observed nearly 3.1 million external attacks on cloud user accounts. The data comes from the aggregation of cloud usage data from more than 30 million McAfee MVISION cloud users worldwide during Q4 2020. “This data set represents companies in all major industries across the globe, including financial services, healthcare, public sector, education, retail, technology, manufacturing, energy, utilities, legal, real estate, transportation, and business services,” stated the release.

“The world—and enterprises—adjusted amidst pandemic restrictions and sustained remote work challenges, while security threats continued to evolve in complexity and increase in volume,” said Raj Samani, McAfee fellow and chief scientist. “Though a large percentage of employees grew more proficient and productive in working remotely, enterprises endured more opportunistic COVID-19 related campaigns among a new cast of bad-actor schemes. Furthermore, ransomware and malware targeting vulnerabilities in work-related apps and processes were active and remain dangerous threats capable of taking over networks and data, while costing millions in assets and recovery costs.”