Document-Based Malware on the Rise in 2019

Evolving malware continues to pose threats to business, and new research has revealed a rise in the use of document-based malware since the start of 2019. According to the newest Threat Spotlight from Barracuda Networks, researchers analyzed emails and identified more than 300,000 unique malicious documents, representing 48% of all malicious files detected in the last 12 months. The frequency of document-based malware rose dramatically in the first quarter of 2019, with 59% of all malicious files coming from documents. “For the past couple of years, script files were a very popular attack method. The percentage of these sort of files declined drastically, however, and was a significant source of the increase of documents as an infection method,” said Jonathan Tanner, senior security researcher at Barracuda Networks. Although documents are good for targeted attacks, the document-based malware analyzed were all used in phishing campaigns. However, Tanner said they are used in targeted attacks as well since as a file type they are less suspicious and more common in clean emails than other file types that could contain malware.