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

In 2019, about 773,943 users of Kaspersky,  a cybersecurity company, whose deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions, were attacked by banking Trojans.

Of those users, a third, representing 35.1 percent was in the corporate sector.

This is among the findings from Kaspersky’s analysis of the financial threat landscape.

The survey further revealed that African countries were affected with  almost every hundredth user, varying from 0,9 to 1%,  in South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Kenya was attacked by banking Trojans at least once in 2019 , yet the share of affected corporate users varied greatly in these countries.
Banking Trojans or ‘bankers’ are one of the most widespread tools for cybercriminals as they focus on stealing money. Bankers usually search for users’ credentials for e-payment and online banking systems, hijacking one-time passwords, and then passing that data to the attackers.
A third of these attacks in 2019 targeted corporate users, an increase from 24 percent to 25 percent  for the previous three years.

According to experts, the rationale of this is clear: attacks on the B2B sector could not only provide access to banking or payment system accounts, but, through employee exposure, could also compromise a company’s financial resources.
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  71 percent  in 2019, which means that almost two third of banking malware attacks in the country were aimed at the corporate sector. It is followed by South Africa, where this figure is significantly smaller and can be compared to the global number, reaching 30 percent.  Kenya and Nigeria, however, saw this parameter being lower than average, with approximately 22,5 percent  of banking malware attacks in Kenya targeting corporate devices, compared to 13 percent in Nigeria.
“While the overall number of attacks with bankers decreased in 2019, the growing interest for corporate users’ credentials indicates we are not yet seeing respite from financial threats. We therefore ask everyone to stay cautious when conducting financial operations online from PCs. While we are in the current peak of remote working during the Coronavirus pandemic, it is especially important not to underestimate criminals’ desire for stealing money,” said Oleg Kupreev, security expert at Kaspersky.