Malware attacks on businesses are down – but it's no time to be complacent

Check Point has released its latest threat intelligence report on malware which is targeting businesses, and the good news is that the overall level of malicious activity is down – but that certainly isn't to say firms should let any element of complacency set in.

Statistics for the month of July showed there were 2,300 separate active malware families assaulting company networks, which represented a drop of 5% in comparison to the previous month.

While a decrease in active malware is obviously good news, and this was the first drop to be seen in four months, the figure for July is still the joint second all-time highest that has been recorded in a month for 2016. In other words, there's hardly a shortage of malware attacks on the go.

And if you look at the figures for mobile malware, the number of active families actually increased by a worrying 50% compared to June. Mobile variants now account for 9% of all active malware, Check Point observed.

Confounding Conficker

As for the most prevalent malware family, that was the Conficker worm – it was responsible for 13% of all attacks. The top 10 most common strains of malware accounted for 60% of all attacks.

And on the mobile malware front, HummingBad was the biggest threat to devices.

Nathan Shuchami, Head of Threat Prevention at Check Point, commented: "Businesses should not be lulled into a false sense of security by the slight drop in the number of active malware families during July. The number of active families still remains at near record levels, highlighting the scale of the challenges businesses face in securing their network against cybercriminals."

Check Point isn't the only security outfit to observe a drop in malware recently – last month, Enigma Software announced a big fall in numbers when it comes to infections, although the company said that ransomware bucked this trend and was on the up and up.

Via: Betanews

• Check out our guide on how to protect yourself from HummingBad