October 2018 Cyber Threat Data: Web App Attacks, Ransomware Continue Upward Trend

Throughout 2018, we’ve been sharing monthly updates on the cyber threat data recorded and analyzed by SonicWall Capture Labs, highlighting cyberattack trends and tying it back to the overall cyber threat landscape.

Now, cyber threat intelligence from the SonicWall Capture Security Center is even deeper. The tool now provides empirical data on cyberattacks against web applications. In an increasingly virtual and cloud-connected world, protecting web apps is just as critical as defending more traditional networks.

In October, the overall number of web application attacks continued to rise sharply. We tracked over 1.8 million web app attacks, more than double the volume of attacks for the same time period in 2017.

One factor influencing this is the continued growth explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT), which has added billions of connected devices online, each bringing new and unique potential for vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

While the headline-grabbing news often focuses on processor attacks like Spectre or Meltdown, companies that aren’t using security measures, like SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection with Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI), can leave their standard applications exposed and vulnerable to cybercriminals who are always looking for a weakness.

The volume of ransomware attacks also continued its global upward trend in October. So far in 2018 we’ve seen over 286 million worldwide attacks, up 117 percent from 132 million this time last year. On an individual customer level, that’s 57 attacks per day per customer, an increase from only 14 in October last year.

The growing frequency and complexities of cyberattacks paint a dire picture for global businesses of all sizes. The good news is that by assessing your business’s cybersecurity risk, improving overall security behavior, and ensuring that you are utilizing the right cybersecurity solutions for your business, it’s possible to protect your business from most data breaches.

October Attack Data

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 October 2018:

• 9.2 billion malware attacks (44 percent increase from 2017)
• 3.2 trillion intrusion attempts (45 percent increase)
• 286.2 million ransomware attacks (117 percent increase)
• 23.9 million web app attacks (113 percent increase)
• 2.3 million encrypted threats (62 percent increase)

In October 2018 alone, the average SonicWall customer faced:

• 1,756 malware attacks (19 percent decrease from October 2017)
• 819,947 intrusion attempts (17 percent increase)
• 57 ransomware attacks (311 percent increase)
• 8,742 web app attacks (185 percent increase)
• 152 encrypted threats (12 percent increase)
• 12 phishing attacks each day (19 percent decrease)

SonicWall Capture Security Center

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.

John Lynch

Social Media Manager | SonicWall

John Lynch is a Social Media Manager at SonicWall. He lives in Dublin, Ireland, and has over 10 years worth of web content writing experience. Do ask him how his writing is coming along.