Financial Threat: 35.1 % corporate users victims of banking attacks in 2019

&NewLine;<p class&equals;"wp-block-paragraph">In 2019&comma; about 773&comma;943 users of Kaspersky&comma;  a cybersecurity company&comma; whose deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions&comma; were attacked by banking Trojans&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p class&equals;"wp-block-paragraph">Of those users&comma; a third&comma; representing 35&period;1 percent was in the corporate sector&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p class&equals;"wp-block-paragraph">This is among the findings from Kaspersky&&num;8217&semi;s analysis of the financial threat landscape&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p class&equals;"wp-block-paragraph">The survey further revealed that African countries were affected with &nbsp&semi;almost every hundredth user&comma; varying from 0&comma;9 to 1&percnt;&comma; &nbsp&semi;in South Africa&comma; Ethiopia&comma; Nigeria and Kenya was attacked by banking Trojans at least once in 2019 &comma; yet the share of affected corporate users varied greatly in these countries&period;<br>Banking Trojans or &OpenCurlyQuote;bankers’ are one of the most widespread tools for cybercriminals as they focus on stealing money&period; Bankers usually search for users’ credentials for e-payment and online banking systems&comma; hijacking one-time passwords&comma; and then passing that data to the attackers&period;<br>A third of these attacks in 2019 targeted corporate users&comma; an increase from 24 percent to 25 percent &nbsp&semi;for the previous three years&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p class&equals;"wp-block-paragraph">According to experts&comma; the rationale of this is clear&colon; attacks on the B2B sector could not only provide access to banking or payment system accounts&comma; but&comma; through employee exposure&comma; could also compromise a company’s financial resources&period;<br>The collected data also shows that Ethiopia has the largest share of corporate users among those who are targeted by banking malware in African regions with&nbsp&semi; 71 percent &nbsp&semi;in 2019&comma; which means that almost two third of banking malware attacks in the country were aimed at the corporate sector&period; It is followed by South Africa&comma; where this figure is significantly smaller and can be compared to the global number&comma; reaching 30 percent&period; &nbsp&semi;Kenya and Nigeria&comma; however&comma; saw this parameter being lower than average&comma; with approximately 22&comma;5 percent &nbsp&semi;of banking malware attacks in Kenya targeting corporate devices&comma; compared to 13 percent in Nigeria&period;<br>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;While the overall number of attacks with bankers decreased in 2019&comma; the growing interest for corporate users’ credentials indicates we are not yet seeing respite from financial threats&period; We therefore ask everyone to stay cautious when conducting financial operations online from PCs&period; While we are in the current peak of remote working during the Coronavirus pandemic&comma; it is especially important not to underestimate criminals’ desire for stealing money&comma;” said Oleg Kupreev&comma; security expert at Kaspersky&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;