Banking Trojans replaced Ransomware as top email-based payload in Q1

The concept of infecting targeted users with banking trojans has been so successful in the recent past that in the first quarter of 2018, banking trojans overtook ransomware as the top malicious payload distributed through email.

In all, banking trojans accounted for 59 percent of all malicious email payloads in the first quarter of 2018 which also saw email-based malware attacks rise significantly. A new report from Proofpoint has shown that the number of firms receiving more than 50 email-based malware attacks grew by 20 percent compared to in the last quarter of 2017.

Aside from injecting banking trojans that are designed to obtain confidential information about customers and clients using online banking and payment systems, hackers are also distributing information stealers, downloaders, remote access Trojans (RATS), and other banking malware via emails to steal credentials and to use them to commit fraud or theft.

Cyber-criminals are also leveraging sophisticated malware that are adept at defeating a majority of anti-malware protections installed on targeted systems. For example, Emotet, a polymorphic malware that has the ability to evade over 75 percent of antivirus engines, has been used in 57 percent of all banking malware attacks and 33 percent of all malicious payloads in Q1.

“Trojans are effective because they exploit weaknesses on different levels. Fraudsters often bait unsuspecting users to click on links in emails that seem to be legitimate, which lead them to a fake website or to download a malicious app,” said Gerhard Oosthuizen, CTO at Entersekt to SC Magazine UK.

“These fakes can look frighteningly real, and the emails baiting users often mimic the bank’s official communications in design and tone. It makes it very hard for users to know when an email, the site they’re clicking through to, or the app they’re downloading, is legitimate.