Welcome to the October edition of the Symantec Intelligence report. Symantec Intelligence aims to provide the latest analysis of cyber security threats, trends, and insights concerning malware, spam, and other potentially harmful business risks.
The number of spear phishing attacks per day continues to trend downward over the last twelve months, coming in at 45 per day in October. Of the attachments used in such email-based attacks, the .doc attachment type comprised 62.5 percent and .exe attachments made up 14.4 percent. Of the industries attacked, the category of Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate received 28 percent of all spear phishing attempts in the month of October, followed by Manufacturing at 17 percent.
The largest data breach that was disclosed in October took place back in July. This breach had previously been reported; however, we learned this month that the breach resulted in the exposure of identities within 76 million households, plus information on an additional seven million small businesses.
In the Mac threat landscape, OSX.Okaz was the most frequently encountered OSX risk seen on OSX endpoints, making up 28.8 percent of OSX risks. OSX.Okaz is an adware program that may modify browser homepage and search settings.
Finally, ransomware as a whole continues to decline as the year progresses. However, the amount of crypto-style ransomware seen continues to increase. This particularly aggressive form of ransomware made up 55 percent of all ransomware in the month of October.
We hope you enjoy the October Symantec Intelligence Report. You can download your copy here.