Let’s talk about something really SPOOKY today. Like growing amount of Internet scams this year. Today’s IT threats are global, highly dynamic and continue to dramatically increase. Below are just some quick facts and numbers from Webroot 2016 Threat Brief (http://webroot-cms-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/7814/5617/2382/Webroot-2016-Threat-Brief.pdf):

Malicious IP

Currently there are more than 12 million high-risk IP addresses on the Internet (this isn’t counting those of moderate and low risk!), with new ones appearing at approximately 100,000 per day. Most of those 12 million are also being reused to launch attacks, but reuse rate keeps dropping, which simply means more new malicious IP addresses. It is becoming a serious issue since it’s harder to stop attacks coming from an IP, which hadn’t been jeopardised yet.

Websites Vulnerabilities

Unfortunately a lot of websites, especially newly built ones, don’t have sufficient security to protect themselves or their user, as establishing security system requires time and resources. Even more horrifying fact, is that with the current progress rate even good website can get hacked or altered and become risky. In 2015 less than a half of all websites were classified as trustworthy, loosing almost 10% since 2014, while almost 40% of websites had moderate risks of being hacked and exposed to malware and this rate continues to increase

Phishing

Phishing information is one of the worst individual threats, as it causes a lot of personal damage to an individual – up to identity theft. Numbers show that 50% of Internet users will fall for at least one phishing attack in a year. The lifespan of phishing sites can be as short as hours and minutes and the shorter the time, the harder it is to protect against it using blacklists.

Top 5 impersonated technology companies.

  • Google (Over 83,000) 44%
  • Dropbox 16%
  • Yahoo 15%
  • Apple 14%
  • Facebook 8%

Top 5 impersonated financial institutions.

  • PayPal 40%
  • Wells Fargo 21%
  • Bank of America 13%
  • Navy Federal 9%
  • Chase 7%

Mobile apps

Probably the fastest growing rate of threats can be found in mobile apps – using them is riskier than ever, especially with people often neglecting the need for antiviruses. In 2015 as much as 52% of all new and updated Android apps were determined to be unwanted or malicious, increasing the percentage of malicious apps more than twice since previous year.

What do I do now?

First of all in order to stay safe don’t neglect the basics of IT security: have an up-to-date antivirus software, don’t click suspicious links and don’t share your personal information, especially passwords, be sure to use different secure passwords for different website and update it regularly. These simple rules will minimize your risk.

And if you are a website owner – don’t forget, that you are responsible for the web safety of your users. To get info on how you can secure yourself or your business call VS Technology specialists at 705-475-0323.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Stay safe.