Trend Micro has released a report called “The invisible web unmasked”

Nov 12, 2013 01:46 GMT  ·  By

Trend Micro has released its threat report for the third quarter of 2013. The study covers cybercrime, mobile threats, privacy and data theft, exploits and vulnerabilities, and targeted attacks.

The report reveals the fact that the number of online banking Trojan infections has increased considerably compared to the same period of 2012. A total of over 200,000 banking Trojan infections have been recorded in Q3 2013, compared to 132,000 in Q3 2012.

ZeuS variants were the most distributed pieces of malware by spam. The most targeted countries were the United States (23%), Brazil (16%), Japan (12%), India (6%), and Australia (3%).

The most common malware spotted in the past quarter was Worm_Downad.ad. However, it’s worth noting that the number of infections decreased from 509,000 to 345,000.

As far as phishing is concerned, such campaigns recorded an increase mainly due to Apple-themed phishing websites. A huge spike in the volume of Apple-related phishing pages was recorded in May, most likely fueled by rumors of the release of iOS7.

When it comes to mobile malware, the number of high-risk applications targeting Android devices has reached 1 million. 55% of the Android threats detected in the past quarter were pieces of malware designed to send SMS messages to premium rate numbers.

Adware was the second most common type of threat (27%), followed by data stealers (22%), remote controllers (12%), malicious downloaders (9%) and hacking tools (2%).

While most mobile threats target the Android platform, experts warn that cybercriminals are starting to rely more and more on malicious applications that can target multiple operating systems.

Trend Micro’s report also covers the Sykipot campaign in which cybercriminals have targeted the computer, telecommunications, government and aerospace industries.

Trend Micro’s complete report for the third quarter of 2013, “The invisible Web Unmasked,” is available on the company’s website.