Threats in 2019 bring the ultimate test of defenses by evading traditional security

HONG KONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - August 28, 2019 - Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704),a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today published its roundupreport for the first half of 2019, revealing a surge in fileless attacksdesigned to disguise malicious activity. Detections of this threat alone wereup 265% compared to the first half of 2018.

The findings in 2019 so far confirm many of the predictionsTrend Micro made last year. Namely, attackers are working smarter to targetbusinesses and environments that will produce the greatest return oninvestment.

"Sophistication and stealth is the name of the cybersecuritygame today, as corporate technology and criminal attacks become more connectedand smarter," said Jon Clay, director of global threat communications for TrendMicro. "From attackers, we saw intentional, targeted, and crafty attacks thatstealthily take advantage of people, processes and technology. However, on thebusiness side, digital transformation and cloud migrations are expanding andevolving the corporate attack surface. To navigate this evolution, businessesneed a technology partner that can combine human expertise with advancedsecurity technologies to better detect, correlate, respond to, and remediatethreats."

Along with the growth in fileless threats in the first halfof the year, attackers are increasingly deploying threats that aren't visibleto traditional security filters, as they can be executed in a system's memory,reside in the registry, or abuse legitimate tools. Exploit kits have also madea comeback, with a 136% increase compared to the same time in 2018.

Cryptomining malware remained the most detected threat inthe first half of 2019, with attackers increasingly deploying these threats onservers and in cloud environments. Substantiating another prediction, the numberof routers involved in possible inbound attacks jumped 64% compared to thefirst half of 2018, with more Mirai variants searching for exposed devices.

Additionally, digital extortion schemes soared by 319% fromthe second half of 2018, which aligns with previous projections. Business emailcompromise (BEC) remains a major threat, with detections jumping 52% comparedto the past six months. Ransomware-related files, emails and URLs also grew 77%over the same period.

In total, Trend Micro blocked more than 26.8 billion threatsin the first half of 2019, over 6 billion more than the same period last year.Of note, 91% of these threats entered the corporate network via email.Mitigating these advanced threats requires smart defense-in-depth that cancorrelate data from across gateways, networks, servers and endpoints to bestidentify and stop attacks.

To read the complete report, Evasive Threats, Pervasive Effects: 2019 Midyear Security Roundup,please visit: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk/security/research-and-analysis/threat-reports/roundup/evasive-threats-pervasive-effects.

About Trend Micro

TrendMicro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, helps to makethe world safe for exchanging digital information. Our innovative solutions forconsumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for datacenters, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. All our products worktogether to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threatdefense with centralized visibility and control, enabling better, fasterprotection. With more than 6,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world'smost advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations tosecure their journey to the cloud. Formore information, visit www.trendmicro.com.hk.