Symantec has established the largest civilian threat collection network in the world, and one of the most comprehensive collections of cybersecurity threat intelligence, through the Symantec Global Intelligence Network (GIN)*. Symantec’s annual threat report is an important report on the state of Internet fraud globally. The 2019 Threat Report is huge and essential reading.

Main findings were:

• 10% of URLs are malicious
• 56% increase in web attacks
• Enterprise ransomware - 12% increase, mobile ransomware - 33% increase
• One in 36 mobile devices had high-risk Apps installed
• Supply chain attacks up 78% 
• Malicious email attachments now 48% (was 5% in 2017)
• Number of attack groups using destructive malware:25% increase
• Cloud-based systems present a wide range of security challenges including simple misconfiguration issues to vulnerabilities in hardware chips, etc. 
• Internet of Things saw a new breed of threat emerge as targeted attack actors displayed an interest in IoT as an infection vector with routers and connected cameras being the main source of attacks
• Cybercrime groups, such as Mealybug and Necurs, continued to use macros in Office files as their preferred method to propagate malicious payloads in 2018
• In 2018, Symantec blocked 69 million cryptojacking events—four times as many events as 2017
• Targeted attacks: the most active groups stepped up their activity, attacking an average of 55 organizations over the past three years.

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* The Symantec GIN comprises more than 123 million attack sensors, recording thousands of threat events per second, and contains over 9 petabytes of security threat data. This network also monitors threat activities for over 300,000 businesses and organizations worldwide that depend on Symantec for protection. Telemetry from across Symantec’s threat protection portfolio helps our 3,800 cybersecurity researchers and engineers identify the top trends shaping the threat landscape. 

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