Malware Spikes Coincided with 2017 Geopolitical Incidents

A new report has linked outbreaks of malware activity to geopolitical events and tensions. Comodo Threat Research Labs’ Global Malware Report 2017 was compiled by former NSA analyst, Kenneth Geers and utilizes the company’s malware monitoring capabilities in over 190 countries worldwide, including North Korea. The top three categories of malware discovered over the past year were: trojans (41%), applications exhibiting malicious, unsafe, or undesirable behavior (24%) and backdoors (10%). Russia hosted the highest number of trojans (9%), backdoors (19%) and worms (19%), whilst the US had the highest volume of malicious applications (3%), as well as viruses (9%) and malware packers (2%). However, the real interest came in the correlation between geopolitical events and malware spikes around the world.