Brazil is the country that sends the most extortion and sextortion threats -study

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Trend Micro, a cybersecurity solutions company, has just published the Fast Facts Report, which analyzes the global scenario of digital threats from January to December 2021. The report shows that Brazil is the country that sends the most extortion and sextortion threats. The United States is the main target of extortion. The study is based on unique IP addresses.

Although the total number of blocked threats decreased by 13.2% in December, it increased in the fourth quarter, especially in November, ending the year with 94.2 billion attempted cyberattacks, up 42% from 2020.

RANSOMWARE

The United States remained the country with the highest number of ransomware registrations in June 2021, followed by France, Hong Kong, and Italy in the December ranking. India ranked fifth, displacing Belgium, which was already in the top 5 in October and November.

The survey confirms the changing profile of modern ransomware, which has shifted from massive to targeted attacks since 2018, favoring targets with higher financial returns. Despite the slight increase in 2019, the downward trend is expected to continue. In 2021, a total of 14 million ransomware attacks were identified globally.

EMAIL THREATS.

In terms of email threats, the United States was the leading country in 2021, accounting for 32.6% of attacks. It was followed by China, India, and Germany in December. France ranked fifth, leaving behind Russia, which was in the top five targets in November.

The banking, healthcare, and government sectors took turns in attacks during the year. In 2021, the government sector topped the list, followed by healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, and financial markets. In the Americas, healthcare was the most targeted area, while the government remained the top target in Brazil.

COVID AS BAIT

Most threats using the Covid-19 theme are executed via email. A significant decrease was observed from May to June, but the number increased again in August. The threat was still active in December, with more than 600,000 entries.

Trend Micro’s research team publishes the Fast Facts report with monthly updates on the threat landscape. It is based on Trend Micro’s Smart Protection Network (SPN) solution, analyzing data security infrastructure.

In addition to the SPN sensors, the data collected also comes from Trend Micro researchers, the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) team, the Threat Hunting team, the Mobile Application Reputation Service (MARS) team, and the Smart Home Network (SHN).

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