Cybercrime rises spectacularly in 2015

Anyone can suffer a cyber attack, not matter if it is a big company, a public institution, or just a particular user. The cyber criminals use all kinds of methods, aiming to influence politically, to make a profit from a good business opportunity, and many other different motives.

According to the surveys published by the antivirus software companies Kaspersky Lab and PandaLab, the cyber crime has increased spectacularly during the first trimester of 2015.

Kaspersky has blocked 200.000 attacks the first three months of 2015, doubling last year’s attacks in the same period of time. The company has also pointed out that there has been an important increase (40%) of the malware (any program that tries to infect a computer), going from the 160.000 of last year, to the 225.000 of this year.

One of the reasons of this rise is the big effect that the international attacks have had during this time. Additionally, Microsoft in its official blog, has also warned against the macro malware attacks, fake e-mails usually with the purpose of stealing people's online banking credentials.

"Just when you think macro malware is a thing of the past, over the past few months, we have seen an increasing macro downloader trend that affects nearly 501,240 unique machines worldwide", said Microsoft.

MOBILE CYBER-THREATS

Kaspersky´s study also showed that the cybercrime in the smart phones has tripled, and estimated that 98% of all existing mobile malware targets the users of Android devices.

Apps can be installed, for instance, through Google Play. Third party apps pose a security threat to users who enable the installation of apps from unverified sources. These unverified packages may carry malware that would be installed on a device without the user’s permission or knowledge, obtaining information like bank accounts or credit cards, that the cybercriminals later use for their benefit.

ATTACKS BY COUNTRY

The countries that have suffered more attacks are China, South America (especially Peru), and Middle East (Syria, Qatar and Algeria).

On the other hand, Europe is the most secure territory, with Norway, Sweden, France, UK, and Portugal being the best places to avoid cybercrime.

According to Kaspersky, the top 3 ranking of the countries form which more attacks are issued are Russia, United States and China.