- McAfee sees COVID-19-themed cyber-attack detections increase by 114% in Q4 2020
- Powershell threats grow 208% driven by Donoff malware
- New malware samples grow 10%; averaging 648 new threats per minute
- New ransomware increases 69%; Mobile malware grows 118%
- McAfee observes 3.1 million external attacks on cloud user accounts
- The Eternal Blue exploit was the most prominent vulnerability exploited in Q4
- Leading MITRE ATT&CK techniques included System Information Discovery, Obfuscated Files, Process Injection and Exploits of Public Facing Applications
McAfee Corp. today released its McAfee Threats Report: April 2021, examining cybercriminal activity related to malware and the evolution of cyber threats in the third and fourth quarters of 2020. In Q4, McAfee Labs observed an average of 648 threats per minute, an increase of 60 threats per minute (10%) over Q3. The two quarters also saw COVID-19-related cyber-attack detections increase by 240% in Q3 and 114% in Q4, while Powershell threats again surged 208% due to continued increases in Donoff malware activity.
COVID-19-Themed Threats
As organizations the world over adapted to unprecedented numbers of employees working from home, cybercriminals worked feverishly to launch COVID-19-themed attacks on a workforce coping with pandemic restrictions and the potential vulnerabilities of remote device and bandwidth security. As the pandemic began to surge around the world, McAfee saw a 605% increase in Q2 2020. These attacks again increased by 240% in Q3 and 114% in Q4.
Attacks on Cloud Users
McAfee observed nearly 3.1 million external attacks on cloud user accounts. This is based on the aggregation and anonymization of cloud usage data from more than 30 million McAfee MVISION cloud users worldwide during the fourth quarter of 2020. This data set represents companies in all major industries across the globe, including financial services, healthcare, public sector, education, retail, technology, manufacturing, energy, utilities, legal, real estate, transportation, and business services.
