New ransomware grew at a rapid rate of 165% in the first quarter of 2015.
The growth has been attributed to the proliferation of the CTB-Locker family and its "affiliate" program, the ransomware family Teslacrypt in addition to new versions of CryptoWall, TorrentLocker and BandarChor.
The growth of new Adobe Flash malware grew a staggering 317% due to attackers shifting focus from Java archive and Microsoft Silverlight vulnerabilities to exploit un-patched Adobe Flash vulnerabilities.
These findings come from Intel Security’s McAfee Labs Threats Report, with McAfee Labs suggesting that organisations and individuals make it a priority to learn how to recognise phishing emails.
The rise in Adobe Flash malware has been attributed to its popularity and the delay in users applying patches while new approaches to exploit vulnerability and the difficulty in detecting some of its exploits have also been identified.
In Q1 42 vulnerabilities were spotted in the product and the company submitted fixes on the same day which received praise from the security firm.
Vincent Weafer, SVP, McAfee Labs, said: "With the popularity of a product like Flash, there comes a tremendous responsibility to proactively identify and mitigate security issues potentially threatening millions of users."
"This research nicely illustrates how the tech industry works together constructively to gain an advantage in the realm of cybersecurity – industry partners sharing threat intelligence, and technology providers acting on information quickly to help prevent potential issues."
One of the big issues is the failure to keep products updated with the latest security patches.
A growing concern in the cybersecurity world is the efforts of Equation Group to exploit HDD and SSD firmware. It was found that the reprogramming modules exposed in February could be used to re-program the firmware in SSD’s and HDD’s.
This meant that once programmed, the firmware can reload associated malware each time infected systems’ boot, meaning that the malware persists without the ability for security software to detect it in a hidden areas of the drive.
Weafer, said: "We have closely monitored both academic proofs of concept and in-the-wild cases of malware with firmware or BIOS manipulation capabilities, and these Equation Group firmware attacks rank as some of the most sophisticated threats of their kind."
"While such malware has historically been deployed for highly-targeted attacks, enterprises should prepare themselves for the seemingly inevitable ‘off-the-shelf’ incarnations of such threats in the future."
Other findings in the report showed a decline in PC malware while the number of mobile malware samples jumped 49% from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015.
Additionally, SSL-related attacks continued in Q1 2015, although they did reduce in number slightly.
