A new report by the Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) revealed that India has seen a 37 per cent increase in cyberattacks in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020, as compared to the fourth quarter (Q4) of last year.
The report showed that Kaspersky’s products had detected and blocked 52,820,874 local cyber threats in India between January to March this year.
“There has been a significant increase in the number of attacks in 2020 Q1 that may continue to rise further in Q2 as well, especially in the current scenario where we notice an increase in cybercriminal activities, and in the Asia Pacific region,” said Saurabh Sharma, Senior Security Researcher, Kaspersky.
The number of local threats in Q1 2020 in India (52,820,874) shows how frequently users are attacked by malware spread via removable USB drives, CDs and DVDs, and other “offline” methods.
Protection against such attacks not only requires an antivirus solution capable of treating infected objects but also a firewall, anti-rootkit functionality and control over removable devices.
India ranks 11th worldwide in the number of attacks caused by servers that were hosted in the country, which accounts of 2,299,682 incidents in Q1 2020 as compared to 854,782 incidents detected in Q4 2019, said the report.
“We see smartphone users being targeted more due to mass consumption and increased digitalisation. Risks like data leakage, connection to unsecured wi-fi networks, phishing attacks, spyware, and apps with weak encryption are some of the common mobile threats that Android users face,” Sharma said.
To avoid cyberattacks, it’s recommended that individuals and organisations improve their digital security infrastructure.
“In order to mitigate some of the major risks like data breaches, targeted ransomware attacks, large scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, businesses will need to allocate their budgets correctly to build a stronger security infrastructure,” said Dipesh Kaura, General Manager for South Asia, Kaspersky.
IANS
