Over 26 million cyber threats targeted Indian companies in Q3 2018: Seqrite

With 40% of total malware detection, IT/ITES industry amongst the most vulnerable to cyber threats

Enterprise cybersecurity provider Seqrite has revealed in its Quarterly Threat Report for third quarter (Q3) of 2018 that more than 26 million threats targeted Indian enterprises during Q3 (July-September) – translating to a per day detection rate of over 280,000 threats.

Seqrite is the enterprise arm of Quick Heal Technologies, cybersecurity solutions provider from India. “Growing interconnectivity has demolished traditional security perimeters. Every endpoint, every node, every device connected to enterprise networks has become a point of entry for attackers looking to steal invaluable information and disrupt business operations,” said Sanjay Katkar, joint managing director and chief technology officer, Quick Heal.

Another interesting trend mapped in the Seqrite Quarterly Threat Report Q3 2018 was the distribution of attacks across different industries. Information technology (IT)/IT-enabled services companies faced the most number of threats, with over 40 per cent of the threats targeting the industry. Other key sectors such as manufacturing (17.88 per cent), education (12.56 per cent), and hospitality (9.17 per cent) were also deemed to be at risk.

According to the report, ransomware, exploits, potentially unwanted application and adware, infectors, and worms remained popular attack methods for cybercriminals, but what was interesting to note was the growing threat posed by cryptojacking (hijacking a internet enabled device to run crypto currency mining software in the background).

Seqrite detected over 24,000 cryptojacking hits on a daily basis during Q3 2018, underlining the growing popularity of this relatively new threat. Reports by other security solutions providers like Symantec have also noted the increasing prevalence of cryptojacking instances over the past year in India.

The World Economic Forum rates cybersecurity threats and attacks as third most likely risk to impact the world today. The scale of the threat is expanding drastically, and by 2021, the global cost of cybersecurity breaches is expected to reach $6 trillion, double the total for 2015.

Industry experts predict that Industry 4.0 (adoption of new tech like Internet of Things, artificial intelligence (AI), etc across businesses)can be the catalyst of changes in different fields like governance, management and administration of smart cities and other applications which are driving the vision of Digital India, said a recent study by EY.

“Mapping these trends has really helped us in gaining a better understanding of the tactics and modalities adopted by threat actors while targeting Indian businesses,” he added.

In a recent report, Frost & Sullivan noted that almost 64 per cent of Indian companies faced cyberattacks over the past year, tallying up to Rs 700 million worth of losses for large businesses. Even as there are concerns around the susceptibility of AI-powered devices as well as internet connected devices to be easily corrupted, security companies are confident that increasing use of AI will actually help provide better security. 

“Threat identification systems already use machine learning techniques to identify entirely new threats. And, it isn’t just attackers that can use AI systems to probe for open vulnerabilities; defenders can use AI to better harden their environments from attacks through a series of simulated attacks,” noted a report on cybersecurity predictions for 2019 by Symantec.