Emerging APAC nations most exposed to malware

Emerging APAC nations are the most vulnerable to malware, according to Microsoft’s bi-annual Security Intelligence Report (SIR).

Of the top locations across the globe most at risk of malware infection in the first quarter of 2017, most of them are developing economies in the region.

The report found that Bangladesh and Pakistan have the highest malware encounter rates around the world. This is followed by two ASEAN nations - Cambodia and Indonesia. Approximately one in four computers running Microsoft real-time security products in these countries reported a malware encounter from January to March 2017.

Other top areas facing malware threats include Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, each with an average malware encounter rate of more than 20% in the first quarter of 2017. This is more than double the global average of 9%.

On the other hand, markets with higher levels of IT maturity, namely Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore, performed better than the worldwide average. In fact, Japan has been ranked the safest country in the world, with only 2% of its computers reporting a malicious program incident.

Ransomware attacks on the rise

Ransomware is one of the most infamous malware families in 2017. In the first half of the year, two waves of ransomware attacks, WannaCrypt and Petya, exploited vulnerabilities in outdated Windows operating systems worldwide, disabling thousands of devices by illegitimately restricting access to data, through encryption. This not only disrupted individuals’ daily lives but also crippled many enterprises’ operations.

The attacks were disproportionately concentrated in Europe while most of the Asia markets have not been too heavily impacted. In fact, Japan and China were listed as the two top countries with the lowest ransomware encounter rates. One of the few exceptions in the region is Korea, which has the second highest ransomware occurrence rate worldwide.

Attackers evaluate several factors when determining which regions to target, such as a country’s GDP, average age of computer users and available payment methods. A region’s language can also be a key contributing factor as a successful attack often depends on an attacker’s ability to personalize a message to convince a user to execute the malicious file.

Cloud accounts and services under cyber siege

As cloud migration increases, the cloud has become the central data hub for the majority of organizations. This also translates into more valuable data and digital assets being stored the cloud, making it an increasingly attractive target for cybercriminals.

The SIR highlighted a 300% increase in consumer and enterprise accounts managed in the cloud being attacked globally over the past year while the number of logins attempted from malicious IP addresses have increased by 44% year-over-year.

In addition, a large majority of these security compromises were the result of weak, guessable passwords and poor password management, followed by targeted phishing attacks and breaches of third-party services. As the frequency and sophistication of attacks on user accounts in the cloud accelerates, there is an increased emphasis on the need to move beyond passwords for authentication.

Malware Encounter Rates for Markets in Asia in Q1 2017 (from highest to lowest):