Majority of malvertising attacks are hosted on news and entertainment websites

With news and entertainment websites some of the most popular among internet users, it’s not hard to believe that they are also among the most popular for malvertising, according to a new report by Bromium Labs “Endpoint Exploitation Trends 1H 2015”.

The report highlights the current threat trends within the World Wide Web and has found that the most common attacks target the most popular environments.

“Hackers continue to innovate new exploits, new evasion techniques and even new forms of malware – recently ransomware – preying on the most popular websites and commonly used software”

Key findings from “Endpoint Exploitation Trends 1H 2015” include:

News and Entertainment Websites Hotbed for Malvertising — More than 58 percent of malvertisments (online advertisements with hidden malware) were delivered through news websites (32 percent) and entertainment websites (26 percent); notable websites unknowingly hosting malvertising included cbsnews.com, nbcsports.com, weather.com, boston.com and viralnova.com.

Attackers Targeting Flash — During the first six months of 2015, Flash experienced eight exploits, an increase of 60 percent since 2014, when there were five exploits. Most active exploit kits are now serving Flash exploits, potentially impacting a large number of Internet users, given the ubiquity of Adobe Flash.

Continuous Growth of Ransomware — In the first six months of 2015, nine new ransomware families emerged: CoinVault, TeslaCrypt, Cryptofortress, PClock, AlphaCrypt, El-Polocker, CoinVault 2.0, Locker and TOX; this is an 80 percent increase from 2014 and represents a significant growth in ransomware since 2013, when there were only two ransomware families: Cryptolocker and Crytowall. Ransomware continues to grow, as cybercriminals realize it is a lucrative form of attack.

Malware Evasion Avoids Detection — Bromium Labs analyzed malware evasion technology and found it is rapidly evolving to bypass even the latest detection techniques deployed by organizations, including antivirus, host intrusion prevention systems (HIPS), honeypots, behavioral analysis, network filters and network intrusion detection systems (NIDS).

A PDF of the full report is available here:
www.bromium.com/sites/default/files/rpt-threat-report-1h2015-us-en.pdf (234)