Trend Micro Report Reveals 265% Growth In Fileless Events

Threats in 2019 bring the ultimate test of defenses by evading traditional security

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HONG KONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - August 28, 2019 - Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704),
a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today published its roundup
report for the first half of 2019, revealing a surge in fileless attacks
designed to disguise malicious activity. Detections of this threat alone were
up 265% compared to the first half of 2018.

 

The findings in 2019 so far confirm many of the predictions
Trend Micro made last year. Namely, attackers are working smarter to target
businesses and environments that will produce the greatest return on
investment.

 

“Sophistication and stealth is the name of the cybersecurity
game today, as corporate technology and criminal attacks become more connected
and smarter,” said Jon Clay, director of global threat communications for Trend
Micro. “From attackers, we saw intentional, targeted, and crafty attacks that
stealthily take advantage of people, processes and technology. However, on the
business side, digital transformation and cloud migrations are expanding and
evolving the corporate attack surface. To navigate this evolution, businesses
need a technology partner that can combine human expertise with advanced
security technologies to better detect, correlate, respond to, and remediate
threats.”

 

Along with the growth in fileless threats in the first half
of the year, attackers are increasingly deploying threats that aren’t visible
to traditional security filters, as they can be executed in a system’s memory,
reside in the registry, or abuse legitimate tools. Exploit kits have also made
a comeback, with a 136% increase compared to the same time in 2018.

 

Cryptomining malware remained the most detected threat in
the first half of 2019, with attackers increasingly deploying these threats on
servers and in cloud environments. Substantiating another prediction, the number
of routers involved in possible inbound attacks jumped 64% compared to the
first half of 2018, with more Mirai variants searching for exposed devices.

 

Additionally, digital extortion schemes soared by 319% from
the second half of 2018, which aligns with previous projections. Business email
compromise (BEC) remains a major threat, with detections jumping 52% compared
to the past six months. Ransomware-related files, emails and URLs also grew 77%
over the same period.

 

In total, Trend Micro blocked more than 26.8 billion threats
in the first half of 2019, over 6 billion more than the same period last year.
Of note, 91% of these threats entered the corporate network via email.
Mitigating these advanced threats requires smart defense-in-depth that can
correlate data from across gateways, networks, servers and endpoints to best
identify and stop attacks.

 

To read the complete report, Evasive Threats, Pervasive Effects: 2019 Midyear Security Roundup,
please visit: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk/security/research-and-analysis/threat-reports/roundup/evasive-threats-pervasive-effects.

About Trend Micro

Trend
Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, helps to make
the world safe for exchanging digital information. Our innovative solutions for
consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data
centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. All our products work
together to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threat
defense with centralized visibility and control, enabling better, faster
protection. With more than 6,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world’s
most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to
secure their journey to the cloud. For
more information, visit www.trendmicro.com.hk.