Barracuda Networks sees sharp rise in malware with malicious documents

Research by Barracuda Networks shows that hackers are increasingly sending out e-mails with compromised documents. In the first three months of this year, the number of intercepted mails with this attempted hacking has increased by more than half.

According to the security experts, in the first three months of 2019 the number of e-mails with malicious documents as attachments has increased considerably. In the same period in 2018, approximately 48 percent of the number of malicious e-mails sent had a compromised document as an attachment; in the first quarter of 2019, this increased to 59 percent.

Malicious e-mails containing malicious documents have been on the rise for some time now. In the past 12 months, the percentage of this type of malicious e-mail has already grown by 48 percent. In total, the security specialists identified 300,000 individual contaminated documents.

Delivery of malicious software

With so-called document-based malware, cyber criminals try to deliver e-mails to their targets that contain malicious software to penetrate computers or networks. This software may be hidden directly in the submitted document that is activated after an attempt to open it.

In addition, it can open a link to an external website, of which the malware is then placed on the computer or network. The most common delivered malware often consists of viruses, trojans, spyware, worms and ransomware.

Most used extensions

According to Barracuda Networks specialists, the most commonly used extensions for sending these malware documents are Microsoft and Adobe files. These include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Acrobat and PDF files.

Other malicious files that are often sent to potential victims via e-mail and are not documents consist of archive files or script files. Hackers often play with file extensions to put their victims on the wrong track and tempt them to open the attachments.

Early intervention in the kill chain

Companies and organisations can arm themselves well against such attacks. According to the security experts, it is important that this takes place as early as possible in the so-called kill chain; the process-oriented steps that cyber criminals take to launch and execute attacks. If this process can be intervened as early as possible, any damage can be prevented or limited.