July 2018 Cyber Threat Intelligence: Malware, Ransomware Attack Volume Still Climbing

Just a month removed from the mid-year update to the 2018 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, the cyber threat landscape continues its volatile pace.

Analyzing the team’s most recent data, SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers are recording year-to-date increases for global malware, ransomware, TLS/SSL encrypted attacks and intrusion attempts.

In addition, the SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection sandbox, with Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI^TM), discovered an average of 1,413 new malware variants per day in July.

Globally, the SonicWall Capture Threat Network, which includes more than 1 million sensors across the world, recorded the following 2018 year-to-date attack data through July 2018:

• 6,904,296,364 malware attacks (88 percent increase from 2017)
• 2,216,944,063,598 intrusion attempts (59 percent increase)
• 215,722,623 ransomware attacks (187 percent increase)
• 1,730,987 encrypted threats (80 percent increase)

In July 2018 alone, the average SonicWall customer faced:

• 2,164 malware attacks (28 percent increase from July 2017)
• 81 ransomware attacks (43 percent increase)
• 143 encrypted threats
• 13 phishing attacks each day
• 1,413 new malware variants discovered by Capture ATP with RTDMI each day

^{The SonicWall Capture Security Center displays a 70 percent year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks.}

SonicWall cyber threat intelligence is available in the SonicWall Security Center, which provides a graphical view of the worldwide attacks over the last 24 hours, countries being attacked and geographic attack origins. This view illustrates the pace and speed of the cyber arms race.

The resource provides actionable cyber threat intelligence to help organizations identify the types of attacks they need to be concerned about so they can design and test their security posture ensure their networks, data, applications and customers are properly protected.

SonicWall Staff