McAfee, the device-to-cloud cybersecurity company, has released its McAfee Threats Report: June 2021, examining cybercriminal activity related to malware and the evolution of cyber threats in the first quarter of 2021. The quarter saw cyber adversaries shift from low-return, mass-spread ransomware campaigns toward fewer, customised Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) campaigns targeting larger, more lucrative organisations. A proliferation in 64-bit CoinMiner applications drove the growth of cryptocurrency-generating coin mining malware by 117 per cent. Additionally, a surge in the growth of new Mirai-based malware variants drove increases in malware targeting Internet of Things (55 per cent) and Linux (38 per cent) systems.
“Criminals will always evolve their techniques to combine whatever tools enable them to best maximise their monetary gains with the minimum of complication and risk,” said Raj Samani, Chief Scientist, McAfee.
“We first saw them use ransomware to extract small payments from millions of individual victims. Today, we see Ransomware as a Service supporting many players in these illicit schemes holding organiSations hostage and extorting massive sums for the criminals,” added Samani.
Each quarter, McAfee assesses the state of the cyber threat landscape based on in-depth research, investigative analysis and threat data gathered by the McAfee Global Threat Intelligence cloud from over a billion sensors across multiple threat vectors around the world.