GEC NEWS WIREEspecially in education, high tech and healthcare industries, Kuluoz malware family persists
Palo Alto Networks has unveiled new analysis of malware trends affecting thousands of organizations in major industries throughout the world. Saeed Agha, General Manager, Middle East at Palo Alto Networks shared that among the findings, which were released today as part of the new Unit 42 Threat Landscape Review, is the persistence of the Kuluoz or Asprox malware family, which accounted for a majority of malware attack sessions affecting industries as varied as healthcare, retail and financial services.
Among the key findings, all verticals saw e-mail (SMTP)and HTTP as the primary channels for malware delivery, but the percentages for each industry vary significantly, indicating that these industries have different threat profiles. Retail and wholesale organizations received almost 28 percentover the web channel, while hospitality organizations received just two percent over the same channel. Malware was delivered in over 50 distinct applications, 87 percent of which were delivered over e-mail and 11.8 percent through web browsing (HTTP). Over 90 percent of unique malware samples were delivered in just one or two attacks. One malware family, known as Kulouz or Asprox, was responsible for about 80 percent of all attack sessions recorded during October 2014, impacting nearly 2,000 different organizations. This malware has plagued Internet users for years, despite multiple attempts to disrupt its infrastructure.
To protect organizations from cyber threats and malware like the kind analyzed in this Review, the Palo Alto Networks Enterprise Security Platform offers a unique preventative approach with three essential components –next-generation firewall, advanced endpoint protection and threat intelligence cloud – to secure computing environments, prevent known and unknown threats, and safely enable an increasingly complex and rapidly growing number of applications.
