The number of corporate and individual users hit by the malware rose to 8% to 430000 in its first half of 2019, according to the report which has been revealed by the cybersecurity firm.
The attacks were mainly aimed at stealing cryptocurrencies, finances, and web money. More than 40% of those affected were corporate users, whose number doubles from the year-ago period.
“We expect to see a rise in the number of attacked users in the second half of 2019,” said Oleg Kupreev, a security researcher at Kaspersky. “Usually, we see a rise in malicious activity after the holiday season, when people are using their devices less than usual and therefore are less likely to fall victim to threat actors.”
“We urge everyone to be extra careful with all banking and finance-related operations that they perform online and remain vigilant,” Kupreev said.
Financial malware which has been commonly identified by the name as banking trojans is aimed at stealing finances and financial data as well as providing threat actors with access to machines and assets of the users and financial organizations.
Some of the researchers found that 50% of the financial threats on the corporate users came from the RTM banking Trojan, which is being followed by the Emotet banking Trojan at 15%. This threat can be damaging one as once it gets inside the entity network perimeter, it can seven self-distribute through vulnerabilities in unpatched devices and then even download the extra threats onto the victim device.