Ransomware modifications and infection attempts doubled in Q2 2019

• According to Kaspersky statistics, 232,292 unique users were targeted by ransomware attacks in Q2 2019, which is 46% more than Q2 2018 (158,921 users).
• The ransomware family that attacked users most often in Q2 2019 (23.4%) was WannaCry, followed by Gandcrab (13.8%).

Kaspersky researchers have detected more new ransomware modifications during the second quarter of 2019 compared to the second quarter of 2018.

Kaspersky IT Threat Evolution Q2 2019 report

Kaspersky’s report highlights that researchers detected 16,017 new ransomware modifications in Q2 2019, along with a high number of infection attempts.

“The majority of new modifications belonged to the Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Gen family (various Trojans are automatically detected as such based on behavioral rules), as well as Trojan-Ransom.Win32.PolyRansom. The large number of PolyRansom modifications was due to the nature of this malware – it is a worm that creates numerous mutations of its own body,” researchers said in the report.

• According to Kaspersky statistics, 232,292 unique users were targeted by ransomware attacks in Q2 2019, which is 46% more than Q2 2018 (158,921 users).

• The report also highlights that users in Bangladesh (9%) were majorly targeted in Q2 2019, followed by Uzbekistan (6%) and Mozambique (4%).
• The ransomware family that attacked users most often in Q2 2019 (23.4%) was WannaCry, followed by Gandcrab (13.8%).

“In Q2 2019, Kaspersky products defeated ransomware attacks against 232,292 unique KSN users. This is 50,000+ fewer than the previous quarter,” researchers said.

Other key highlights

• Kaspersky solutions blocked 717,057,912 attacks launched from online resources in 203 countries across the globe, along with 217,843,293 unique URLs triggered Web Anti-Virus components.
• Kaspersky solutions blocked malware attacks designed to steal money from bank accounts on the computers of 228,206 users.
• Researchers detected 240,754,063 unique malicious and potentially unwanted objects in Q2, 2019.
• Researchers detected 753,550 malicious installation packages, 13,899 installation packages for mobile banking Trojans, and 23,294 installation packages for mobile ransomware Trojans.