Kaspersky Laboratory Solution, says internet operations witnessed increased mobile threats, financial theft from online banking and targeted cyber-attacks in the first nine months of 2015.
The company, in a statement, specifically identified Nigerian internet users as highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
It said that 14 per cent of users in Nigeria in the third quarter of 2015 faced cyber threats from the Internet, while 46 per cent encountered malware virus attacks through local networks.
“In third quarter of 2015 overall 45.3 per cent of Kaspersky anti-virus users in Nigeria encountered malware that spread in local networks, through USBs and storage disks, while 13.8 per cent faced cyber threats from the Internet.
According to Kaspersky, globally, Nigeria ranks as 64th most attacked country in terms of malware and 128th in terms of cyber threats.
The company also said that 235.4 million malicious virus attacks from online resources were detected and repelled globally in the period under review.
“Kaspersky Laboratory’s web antivirus detected 38.2 million unique malicious objects: scripts, exploits, executable files, etc.
“This is 46.9 per cent higher than virus attacks recorded in the second.
“In addition 5.68 million registered notifications about attempted malware infections that aim to steal money via online access to bank accounts were recorded.
“The overall trend so far for 2015 has continued in the third quarter: Exploits for Adobe Flash Player and Internet Explorer are most popular with cybercriminals,’’ it added.
Kapersky said malicious mobile programmes were on the increase with 5.6 million cases of attempted theft from online bank accounts.
The company said that 323,374 new malicious mobile programmes or an increase of 10.8 per cent was witnessed in the second quarter of 2015, while three to one growth were detected by its mobile security products in the third quarter.
It added that there were more than 1.5 million malicious packages installed on mobile devices in the period under review and 1.5 times more than in the previous quarter.
The company noted that adverts had remained the main vehicle of making money from mobile threats.
“They often root the device of a victim and use super user privileges, making it very difficult to combat them.
“In the third quarter of 2015, Trojans accounted for more than half the most popular mobile malware,’’ it added.
Kaspersky also said that virus threats to banks customers using online banking in period under review witnessed about 626,000 or 5.7 per cent attempts in using malware to steal money.
“During the quarter, there were 5.68 million notifications about attempted malware infections to steal money from users via online access to bank accounts,’’ it said.
SOURCE: Olisa Egbunike | PREMIUM TIMES