Healthcare sector accounts for most cyber security incidents
The healthcare industry accounted for 26 percent of security incidents in the second quarter of 2017 according to a new report.
The study from McAfee Labs sees healthcare surpass the public sector to report the greatest number of security incidents in Q2. The health, public, and education sectors combined comprised more than 50 percent of total incidents in 2016-2017 worldwide.
McAfee has also seen a rise in social media attacks with the Faceliker Trojan helping drive the quarter's 67 percent increase in new malware samples from the social media landscape.
The second quarter of 2017 saw Facebook emerge as a notable attack vector, with Faceliker accounting for as much as 8.9 percent of the quarter's 52 million newly detected malware samples. This Trojan infects a user's browser when visiting malicious or compromised websites. It then hijacks Facebook 'likes' and promotes the content without the knowledge or permission of the user. Doing this at scale can earn money for the malicious parties behind Faceliker as the hijacked clicks can make a news article, video, website or ad appear more popular or trusted than it really is.
"Faceliker leverages and manipulates the social media and app based communications we increasingly use today," says Vincent Weafer, vice president at McAfee Labs. "By making apps or news articles appear more popular, accepted and legitimate among friends, unknown actors can covertly influence the way we perceive value and even truth. As long as there is profit in such efforts, we should expect to see more such schemes in the future."
Other types of threat have been increasing too, mobile malware grew 61 percent over the past four quarters, new macro malware rose by 35 percent, while new ransomware grew 54 percent. Mac malware has grown at a slower rate, up just four percent in the second quarter.
You can see more detail in the full report which is available on the McAfee website.
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