WatchGuard Threat Lab Report finds 300% increase in endpoint malware

WatchGuard Technologies has released the findings of its latest Internet Security Report, a quarterly analysis detailing the top malware, network, and endpoint security threats observed by the WatchGuard Threat Lab researchers during the third quarter of 2024.

The report’s key findings include a 300% increase quarter over quarter of endpoint malware detections, highlighted by growing threats that exploit legitimate websites or documents for malicious purposes as threat actors turn to more social engineering tactics to execute their attacks. While Microsoft documents like Word and Excel have long been targets for deceiving users into downloading malicious software, strict anti-macro protections on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Office files have led attackers to use OneNote files to deliver Qbot (a remote access botnet trojan). Another top threat that exploits legitimate services includes new attacks on WordPress plug-in vulnerabilities. Threat actors exploit these vulnerabilities to gain control over websites and leverage their reputation to host malicious downloads like SocGholish, which deceives users with false prompts to update their browsers and then execute malware. WordPress hosts more than 488.6 million websites worldwide, which comprises 43% of all websites on the Internet.

The Threat Lab also observed a rise in threat actors utilising cryptominers this quarter, many of which were capable of additional malicious behaviours. Cryptominers are malware that hides on the user’s device and steals its computing resources to mine for online currencies such as Bitcoin. As cryptocurrency rises again in value and popularity, cryptomining malware is also regaining popularity.

“The findings from our Q3 2024 Internet Security Report demonstrated a dramatic shift in traditional versus evasive malware threats,” said Corey Nachreiner, chief security officer, of WatchGuard Technologies. “These findings illustrate how quickly the threat landscape can evolve, so it's important to utilise full, defense-in-depth cybersecurity solutions that can quickly catch old threats and adapt to new ones in real-time. Organisations of all sizes should consider adopting AI-powered threat detection to spot unexpected traffic patterns and reduce dwell time, ultimately reducing the cost of a breach but also maintaining their traditional antimalware controls too.”

Additional key findings from WatchGuard’s Q3 2024 Internet Security Report include:

• This quarter, signature-based detections increased by 40% as threat actors turned to more social engineering tactics to execute their attacks. This growth underscores the rising prevalence of traditional malware as attackers refine their strategies to exploit legacy systems or widespread vulnerabilities.

• EMEA accounted for 53% of all malware attacks by volume, doubling from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific region accounted for the most network attack detections, with 59% targeting the area.

• Malware attacks declined by 15% from the previous quarter. The Threat Labs findings also demonstrate that attackers created less new or unique malware than in prior quarters but are using a wider breadth of malware techniques instead to infect devices.

• Only 20% of malware detections evaded signature-based detection methods. This was a significant departure from normal for what we call “zero-day malware,” which requires more proactive techniques to catch.

• While ransomware continued to trend downward in recent quarters, Threat Labs data shows more ransomware operators this quarter than in Q2 of 2024. Threat actors used a wider range of existing tactics to deliver ransomware rather than creating new attack avenues.

• Endpoint malware detections were up significantly this quarter with a 300% increase compared to Q2. This increase was coupled with a 74% decrease in threats blocked per 100k active machines, suggesting a flood of homogenous spam-like malware arriving on endpoints, likely separate malware campaigns with the same payload.

Consistent with WatchGuard’s Unified Security Platform® approach and the WatchGuard Threat Lab’s previous quarterly research updates, the data analysed in this quarterly report is based on anonymised, aggregated threat intelligence from active WatchGuard network and endpoint products whose owners have opted to share in direct support of WatchGuard’s research efforts.