Report Shows Massive Increase in Malware Distribution

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CYREN Publishes 2015 Cyberthreat Yearbook

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Mar 05, 2015, 06:15 ET

MCLEAN, Va., March 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- CYREN (NASDAQ: CYRN) today announced the release of its second annual CYREN Cyberthreat Yearbook.

Introduced by CTO Lior Kohavi, the comprehensive report serves as an analysis of last year's most notable cybercrime trends as collected by the CYREN Security Lab, which monitors 17 billion transactions each day to protect more than 600 million users. Delivering a unique look at 2014's top trends, the CYREN Cyberthreat Yearbook compiles eye-opening statistics as well as expected developments.

Lior Kohavi, Chief Technology Officer of CYREN - www.cyren.com

In addition to highlighting the impact of the heavily publicized cyberattacks at Home Depot and Sony, CYREN presents an in-depth analysis of individual threats captured in 2014 to illustrate how cybercriminals engage in the business of crime, how they target the business enterprise, and what CYREN is doing to halt the advance of cybercrime.

Top statistics from 2013 to 2014 include:

159% increase in malware URLs tracked by CYREN in 2014
50% increase in average daily number of emails containing malware – from 1.69 to 2.5 billion
42.34% of all spam was pharmacy related – the most frequent topic followed by job offers
30% decline in the average daily amount of spam from 78.2 billion to 54.6 billion

In the report, Kohavi states, "In December, CYREN observed its largest email attached malware outbreak for the year, with 10.7 billion emails sent on the 18^th of the month, followed by another 10.7 billion malware-embedded emails on the 23^rd. Malware URLs tracked by CYREN in the GlobalView Cloud increased by 159% to 1.06 million in 2014."

Kohavi continues, "In the first and second quarters of 2014, CYREN began to observe macro-malware belonging to the Trojan families of Zbot and Dridex. Then in early November, CYREN observed an outbreak of over 3.02 billion emails containing advanced second generation macro-malware. Subsequent outbreaks in December consisted of as many as 1.2 billion emails in one day. Unlike earlier versions, this macro malware did not exhibit the same routines seen among early macro viruses... Macro malware is a good example of malware authors and distributors adapting to increased security measures and repurposing older tricks that users may have forgotten."

The CYREN Cyberthreat Yearbook also assesses the threat associated with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), noting that an ever-increasing number of organizations will become significantly more vulnerable if they fail to properly secure their latest technologies for smart energy efficient buildings, other industrial control systems (ICS), building access swipe systems, and video surveillance.

The entire report is available for download at http://tinyurl.com/CyberThreatsReport.

About CYREN
Founded in 1991, CYREN (NASDAQ and TASE: CYRN) is a long-time innovator in cybersecurity. Through full-function Security as a Service (SecaaS) and security technology components for embedded deployment options, CYREN provides web, email, mobile and endpoint security solutions that are relied upon by the world's largest IT companies to protect against today's advanced threats. CYREN collects threat data and delivers cyber intelligence through a unique global network of over 500,000 points of presence that processes 17 billion daily transactions and protects 600 million users. Visit www.cyren.com.

Blog: blog.cyren.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CyrenWeb
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/cyren
Twitter: twitter.com/CyrenInc

U.S.Investor Contact:
Garth Russell
KCSA
212.896.1250
[email protected]

Israel Investor Relations Contact:
Iris Lubitch
EffectiveIR
+972.54.2528007
[email protected]

CYREN Company Contact:
Mike Myshrall, CFO
CYREN
703.760.3320
[email protected]

CYREN Media Contact:
Matthew Zintel
Zintel Public Relations
281.444.1590
[email protected]

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SOURCE CYREN