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 vulnerabilities disclosed increased in October, from 349 in September to 441 reported during this month. However, vulnerability disclosures have trended lower over the last three months when comparing the last year’s worth of monthly disclosures.
The number of new malware variants also appears to be lower than what has been seen over the last 12 month period. There were 21.7 million new pieces of malware created in October, which is down from the high for 2015 of 57.6 million seen back in June.
However, not everything is trending downward. Crypto-ransomware was up once again during October, setting another high for 2015, with 44 thousand instances seen during the month.
Spam also appears to have been increasing slightly over the last few months, reaching a six-month high of 53.5 percent. Spam rates appeared to have bottomed out during June, which saw the lowest spam levels seen in over a decade, but have increased slightly since.
In terms of targeted attacks, the Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate sector was the most targeted sector during October, comprising 69 percent of all targeted attacks. Large enterprises were the target of 67.9 percent of spear-phishing attacks as well, up from 45.7 percent in September.
We hope you enjoy the October Symantec Intelligence Report. You can download your copy here.