Australians clicked 27m malicious links in Q1

Australian organisations that let employees browse the internet at work should take heed of the fact that Australians clicked on almost 27 million malicious links during the first quarter.

Trend Micro’s latest quarterly report shows that Australia ranked sixth in the world for users who accessed suspicious links.

Australia was also fifth in the top 10 malicious URL sources by country, with nearly 4 million malicious URLs hosted in the nation through the quarter.

The number of malware detections in Australia grew to more than 10.5 million over the quarter. Online banking malware continued to thrive, with Australia ranked one of the 10 companies most affected by this malware type.

Internationally, the mobile threat landscape grew at an even faster pace than last year, with 2 million pieces of mobile malware and high-risk apps detected during the quarter.

The report also identifies an increase in the threat posed by targeted attack campaigns, arguing that this highlights the need for customised defence strategies.

Organisations continued to struggle with attacks that were targeted in nature, which could be directly aimed at the energy, financial, healthcare, and retail industries or critical infrastructure,” Trend Micro Australia and New Zealand Managing Director Sanjay Mehta commented.

“It came down to a simple equation - high-value targets that promised massive payouts were compromised despite the determined efforts of organisations to protect their valuable information.”

Image courtesy of Alpha under CC