- Jun 9, 2013
- 6,720
In 2016, there were 702 million attempts to launch an exploit, according to Kaspersky Lab. This is 24.54% more than in 2015, when Kaspersky protection technologies blocked just over 563 million such attempts.
The growing use of exploits, i.e. malware that uses bugs in software to infect devices with additional malicious code like banking trojans or ransomware, is a result of the fact that these are among the most effective. In a report prepared by Kaspersky, the firm noted that attacks conducted with the help of exploits generally don’t require any user interaction, and can deliver their dangerous code without the user suspecting anything.
Such tools are therefore often used both by cyber-criminals seeking to steal money from private users and companies, and by sophisticated targeted attack actors hunting for sensitive information.
The report found that the number of corporate users attacked by exploits increased 28.35% to reach more than 690,000, or 15.76% of all users attacked with exploits. Browsers, Windows OS, Android OS and Microsoft Office are the applications exploited most often—and 69.8% of users encountered an exploit for one of these at least once in 2016.
Read More. 2016 Saw 702 Million Exploit Attempts
The growing use of exploits, i.e. malware that uses bugs in software to infect devices with additional malicious code like banking trojans or ransomware, is a result of the fact that these are among the most effective. In a report prepared by Kaspersky, the firm noted that attacks conducted with the help of exploits generally don’t require any user interaction, and can deliver their dangerous code without the user suspecting anything.
Such tools are therefore often used both by cyber-criminals seeking to steal money from private users and companies, and by sophisticated targeted attack actors hunting for sensitive information.
The report found that the number of corporate users attacked by exploits increased 28.35% to reach more than 690,000, or 15.76% of all users attacked with exploits. Browsers, Windows OS, Android OS and Microsoft Office are the applications exploited most often—and 69.8% of users encountered an exploit for one of these at least once in 2016.
Read More. 2016 Saw 702 Million Exploit Attempts
