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Quick Heal’s Q2 2016 Threat Report Predicts a Rise in Banking Malware Threats and Attacks on Social Networking Sites

  • Feeble decline in the detection count of both Android and Windows malware with Windows computers witnessing a decline of 16% in the detection count
  • An increase of 200% in the detection of mobile Ransomware making it close to 50% of the detections of all four quarters of 2015 combined
  • Newer variants of Windows malware have joined the pack of the top 10 malware of Q2 and security vulnerabilities have swollen to scary proportions
  • Q2’s Android malware detection has dropped by 2.1% as compared with Q1
  • Detection of Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUAs) has shown an increase of 5% in Q2, as compared with Q1

PUNE, August 30, 2016Quick Heal Technologies today announced the results of its Second Quarter Threat Report for 2016. The complete report, which can be downloaded from the Quick Heal website, outlines the top malware afflicting Windows and Android users, with a brief overview on each of the malware families. The report also compares the malware detection statistics of this quarter with that of the previous quarter.

According to the report, trojans, worms, infectors and exploits have shown constant detection rates during all the months of Q2. The combined figure of Adware and PUA category detection is 28% on an average. Ransomware detection has declined by a tiny margin in June when compared with May but is on a rise as compared to Q1 2016.

As observed in the detection statistics of Q2 2016, adware remains one of the major malware categories. The dominance of the ransomware family showed no respite even in this quarter. Locky Ransomware continued to maintain its dominance by encrypting files on the infected system and adding the “.locky” extension to them. Due to a lack of decryption possibility, Locky was considered as one of the most dangerous ransomware in this quarter.

Sharing an insight into the report, Sanjay Katkar, MD & CTO, Quick Heal Technologies Limited said; “We consider creating awareness around IT and cyber security as our prime responsibility and therefore, we have been releasing threat reports periodically.” He further added; “At Quick Heal, our teams constantly monitor the threat landscape and develop solutions to counter these threats. Our Threat Reports are an attempt towards building safe and secure IT environments and online experiences. We are constantly innovating to equip our consumers and enterprises to monitor and prevent these threats and safeguard their critical data.”

Trends and Predictions

PUA and Adware are suspected to be laced with destructive functionalities including damaging or crashing boot sector records of infected computers. Additionally, adware is most likely to be used for delivering ransomware into the targeted systems.

Ransomware variants will keep rising in the coming quarter as well. The cryptxxx ransomware is suspected to hit its targets with new and more advanced variants. Locky ransomware is expected to remain complicated because of its continuously changing internal coding and obfuscation techniques.

Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) is another trend which is taking momentum. In RaaS, malware authors sell ransomware along with a customizable kit through the online black market. Interested people can register and download them for free or a nominal fee. Once the ransomware file is customized as per the requirement, it is then spread through the desired infection vectors.

Attacks on social networking sites are expected to increase
Malware attacks on social networking sites are likely to increase in the near future. By 2018, it is estimated that there will be about 2.55 billion users on social network. With such a sheer volume of user interaction, such sites are only easy targets for online scammers and cyber criminals.

Banking malware threats are going to rise
Banking malware is going to be a concern in the coming days for security experts and more importantly users of mobile Internet banking. With almost all banks developing dedicated apps for banking, hackers are going to leverage this as a lucrative opportunity to trick users and generate illegitimate cash to further fuel their nefarious intentions.

About Quick Heal Technologies Limited
Quick Heal Technologies Limited is one of the leading providers of security software products and solutions in India. Incorporated in 1995 with a registered office in Pune, Quick Heal has over 1,300 employees and a network of over 20,000 channel partners on 30th June 2016. It conducts sales and marketing activities out of 64 offices and warehouses across 36 cities in India and, through its subsidiaries that are present in Japan, Dubai, the United States of America, and Kenya.

Quick Heal’s portfolio includes solutions under the widely recognized brand names ‘Quick Heal’ and ‘Seqrite’ across various operating systems and devices. Since its incorporation, more than 24.5 million licenses of Quick Heal’s products have been installed and Quick Heal has over 7.3 million active licenses spread across more than 80 countries as on 30th June 2016