More than 100 malicious online campaigns affect organisations globally

Mumbai: In a recent report, prominent cyber-security firm Kaspersky Lab has identified more than 100 malicious campaigns that are hitting commercial and government organizations across 85 countries.

The research elucidated that the growing numbers of sophisticated threat actors are actively improving and extending their arsenal, and a lot of new actors are coming to the stage, significantly raising the overall levels of danger.

It also pointed out that targeted attacks are not an elite activity anymore; compared to last year, threats that have emerged this year are smaller but equally efficient campaigns. The key objective of

Based on the analysis of the intelligence gathered on these campaigns, researchers from the firm have pointed out that government some of the major targets of these campaigns. Some of the prime targets are government organizations, financial institutions, telecom companies, and many more.

Stressing on the need for updating traditional endpoint and network protection solutions, the firm pointed out that cyber-criminals are now using advanced tools that can overthrow traditional security infrastructures with ease.

"We’ve been tracking sophisticated targeted attacks for more than six years now and we have seen this kind of activity become a widely used tool for espionage and money theft. Targeted attacks can affect many different types of organizations, it’s not just governments that are affected. Multiple commercial organizations – especially from the enterprise sector – are in danger as well,” said Costin Raiu, Director, Global Research and Analysis, Kaspersky.

“They might become an organization of interest for attackers because they cooperate with government and military entities, or because they hold valuable intellectual property, or just because they have access to large financial assets. In this situation getting an early warning on an emerging malicious campaign targeting a certain type of organizations is crucial for entities that are willing to protect their sensitive data reliably. Intelligence based services that make it possible for enterprise security teams to access data about the latest sophisticated threats is a must nowadays", he added.