Highlights from the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report 2017

Cyber criminals revealed new levels of ambition – a year marked by extraordinary attacks, including multi-million dollar virtual bank heists and overt attempts to disrupt the U.S. electoral process by state-sponsored groups.

New sophistication and innovation marked seismic shifts in the focus of attacks. Zero-day vulnerabilities and sophisticated malware were used less as nation states devolved from espionage to straight sabotage. Meanwhile, cyber criminals caused unprecedented levels of disruption with relatively simple IT tools and cloud services.

Key findings

• An email user is almost twice as likely to encounter malware through email than they are through the next-most common infection method, exploit kits.
• One out of every nine email users encountered email malware in the first half of 2017.
• Approximately 8,000 businesses each month are targeted by BEC scams.
• A targeted organization has 5.2 BEC emails sent to them in a given month.
• The spam rate for the first half of 2017 reached 54 percent, and is expected to continue to climb as the year progresses.
• Without spam filters, a business effectively employs two people to manage spam for every 100 employees.