Intel’s latest McAfee Labs’ report revealed that more than five threats were detected every second during the third quarter of 2014.
Mobile malware samples escalated by 16% during the quarter, with overall malware rising by 76% compared to the corresponding quarter the previous year.
Intel Security McAfee Labs senior vice president Vincent Weafer said: "The year 2014 will be remembered as ‘the Year of Shaken Trust’".
"This unprecedented series of events shook industry confidence in long-standing Internet trust models, consumer confidence in organisations’ abilities to protect their data, and organizations’ confidence in their ability to detect and deflect targeted attacks in a timely manner."
Some attempts to exploit the Internet trust models were also detected during the quarter, which include secure socket layer (SSL) vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed and BERserk, in addition to exploiting digital signatures that masquerade malware as genuine code.
For 2015, McAfee predicts a rise in the use of cyber warfare and espionage tactics; greater internet of things attack frequency, profitability, and severity; intensifying privacy debates; ransomware’s evolvement into the cloud; and an increase in POS attacks mainly targeting digital payments.
Further predictions include a rise in non-Windows malware attacks due to Shellshock vulnerability; rise in exploitation of software flaws; and new dodging tactics for sandboxing.
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Weafer said: "Restoring trust in 2015 will require stronger industry collaboration, new standards for a new threat landscape, and new security postures that shrink time-to-detection through the superior use of threat data."
"Ultimately, we need to get to a security model that’s built-in by design, seamlessly integrated into every device at every layer of the compute stack."
