14 DAY TRIAL // Security firm Websense has published an interesting report on the cyber threat landscape in Canada. The study, Canadian Cybercrime Report Card, shows that when it comes to malware, Canada has become increasingly preferred by cybercriminals.
“Malware authors don't do things that are predictable. They have more success with their malicious plots by disguising their transfers from a 'trusted' server in Canada, as opposed to Russia, China or other countries with established cybercriminal activity,” said Fiaaz Walji, Websense Canadian country manager.
“Organizations need a unified solution that integrates web, data, email, mobile and cloud security to stop advanced data stealing attacks and secure IP better than their competitors.”
The report shows that the number of pieces of malware hosted on Canadian websites has increased by 25% from last year.
Command and control server (C&C) hosting has also increased by a whopping 83%. And the worst part is that many of these C&C servers control sophisticated malware that’s used for corporate espionage.
Last year, Canada topped even China and Russia when it came to the volume of servers communicating with sophisticated malware.
On the bright side, the number of phishing websites hosted on Canadian computers has decreased by 67% in the last year. However, on a global scale, Canada still occupies the fourth position for hosted phishing sites. “Canadian cybercriminal activity is quickly evolving and taking on more nefarious forms,” noted Carl Leonard, senior manager of security research for Websense.
“Hackers are moving away from the broad ‘spam everyone’ approach because it only yields cents on the click. They've set their sights on much more targeted attacks where social engineering of the actual user can turn into millions of dollars in potential criminal profit.”
The complete report can be downloaded from here (registration required).