If looking at the past helps prepare you for the present, here is another cybersecurity retrospective to boost your cyberpreparedness…

OpenText has issued its 2020 Webroot Threat Report for last year, highlighting not only the agility and innovation of cybercriminals who continue to seek out new ways to evade defenses, but also their commitment to long-established attack methods.

The 2020 Webroot Threat Report presents analyses, findings and insights from the Webroot Threat Research team on the state of cyber threats. Among those expected to have significant impact on the cyberthreat landscape into 2020 and beyond are:

  • Phishing URLs encountered grew by 640% in 2019
    • 1 in 4 malicious URLs was hosted on an otherwise non-malicious domain
    • 8.9 million URLs were found hosting a cryptojacking script
    • The top sites impersonated by phishing sites or cybercriminals are Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google, PayPal and DropBox
    • The top five kinds of websites impersonated by phishing sites are crypto exchanges (55%), gaming (50%), web email (40%), financial institutions (40%) and payment services (32%)
  • Malware targeting Windows 7 increased by 125%
    • 93.6% of malware seen was unique to a single PC—the highest rate ever observed
    • IP addresses associated with Windows exploits grew by 360%, with the majority of exploits targeting out-of-date operating systems
  • Consumer PCs remain nearly twice as likely to get infected as business PCs
    • The data reveals that regions most likely to be infected also have the highest rates of using older operating systems
    • Of the infected consumer devices, more than 35% were infected more than three times, and nearly 10% encountered six or more infections
    • The continued insecurity of consumer PCs underscore the risk companies face in allowing employees to connect to business networks from their personal devices
  • Trojans and malware accounted for 91.8 percent of Android threats.
    Said Hal Lonas, Senior Vice President and CTO, SMB and Consumer, OpenText: “In the cybersecurity industry the only certainty is that there is no certainty, and there is no single silver bullet solution. The findings from this year’s report underline why it’s critical that businesses and users of all sizes ensure they’re not only protecting their data but also preparing for future attacks by taking simple steps toward cyber resilience through a defense-in-depth approach that addresses user behavior and the best protection for network and endpoints.”