Security News > 2021 > April > COVID-Related Threats, PowerShell Attacks Lead Malware Surge

Surging numbers of COVID-themed attacks, PowerShell trojans, along with the SolarWinds compromise and the continued spread of Sunburst malware were major contributors to a massive spike in the number of observed attacks in the wild during the last half of 2020, which McAfee's said averaged 588 attacks per minute within its telemetry during Q3 and Q4 of 2020.

Researchers observed an average of 648 threats per minute in Q4 in the wild, an increase of 10 percent over the third quarter a continued upward trend from the 40 percent jump compared to Q2 2020, McAfee's latest threat report said.

COVID-19-related attacks continued to leave their mark the ecosystem: "McAfee's global network of more than a billion sensors registered a 605 percent increase in total Q2 COVID-19- themed threat detections," the report said.

Office-targeted malware grew by 199 percent, and observed mobile malware was up 118 percent thanks to SMS Reg and others, the McAfee team explained.

In a bit of good news for Mac users, EvilQuest ransomware's levels came back to earth after a whopping 420 percent jump in Q3 2020; and the numbers of observed Coin Miner malware fell by 35 percent in the fourth quarter.

CryptoDefense boosted ransomware numbers by 69 percent from Q3 to Q4, with help from REvil, Thanos, Ryuk and Maze, which was credited with attacking household consumer electronics brand Cannon last summer, among other attacks.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/mcafee-covid-rpowershell-malware-surge/165382/