Windows 7 is Becoming Even Riskier, Malware up by 71 Percent

[steven36]

A  new report -- Webroot Threat Report: Mid-Year Update -- has found that one in 50 URLs are malicious, nearly one-third of phishing sites use HTTPS and Windows 7 and exploits have grown 75 percent since January 2019. 

 

 

According to the report,

 

• Hackers are using trusted domains and HTTPS to trick victims.
  • Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of malicious URLs were found to be hosted on trusted domains, as hackers know trusted domain URLs raise less suspicion among users and are more difficult for security measures to block.
  • 1 in 50 URLs (1.9 percent) were found to be malicious, which is high, the report says, given that nearly a third (33 percent) of office workers click more than 25 work-related links per day.
  • Nearly a third (29 percent) of detected phishing web pages use HTTPS as a method to trick users into believing they're on a trusted site via the padlock symbol.
     
• Phishing continued rapid growth into 2019, and criminals are expanding their phishing targets.
  • Phishing grew rapidly, with a 400-percent increase in URLs discovered from January to July 2019.
  • The top industries impersonated by phishing include:
    • 25 percent are SaaS/Webmail providers
    • 19 percent are financial institutions
    • 16 percent are social media
    • 14 percent are retail
    • 11 percent are file hosting
    • Eight percent are payment services companies
       
• Phishing lures are becoming increasingly personalized as more PII is collected from breaches.
  • Phished passwords are used for more than account takeover. Specifically: extortion emails are being used, claiming the user has been caught doing something embarrassing or damaging that will be shared with colleagues, friends and family unless a ransom is paid, says the results. 
  • Phishing doesn't always target usernames and passwords. The attacks also go after secret questions and their answers, says the report.
     
• Windows 7 is becoming even riskier, with infections increasing by 71 percent.
  • Between January and June, the number of IPs that host Windows exploits grew 75 percent
  • Malware samples seen on only one PC are at 95.2 percent, up from 91.9 percent in 2018
  • Out of all infected PCs, 64 percent were home user machines, and 36 percent were business devices. 

More at: (Webroot)

 

Source

[funkyy]

Not long ago on another thread I mentioned that I had noticed that sites that I had regularly visited for years were suddenly being flagged as containing "Scrinject.B trojan"....and in the last few weeks the number of alerts (by ESET) has increased to the point where the majority of links are being flagged with this trojan. In addition to that, one of my usual sites has had the links taken over by a scam where each time you click on a link (usually Zippyshare) an Adf.ly page opens and asks you to click "Allow" to receive notifications....again you receive the Scrinject.B trojan.

Let's be careful out there!!

[zanderthunder]

3 hours ago, funkyy said:

Not long ago on another thread I mentioned that I had noticed that sites that I had regularly visited for years were suddenly being flagged as containing "Scrinject.B trojan"....and in the last few weeks the number of alerts (by ESET) has increased to the point where the majority of links are being flagged with this trojan. In addition to that, one of my usual sites has had the links taken over by a scam where each time you click on a link (usually Zippyshare) an Adf.ly page opens and asks you to click "Allow" to receive notifications....again you receive the Scrinject.B trojan.

Let's be careful out there!!

Yeah, this is one scare tactic used by ESET, false positive detection.

 

On my other machine running Kaspersky Internet Security, there's not even a single issue there.

[stylemessiah2]

Use Avast Free, its not so silly or alarmist

 

I dunno why people use a paid AV these days, i havent paid for AV in well over a decade, youre just paying for the appearance/idea of more security than is in the free one....

[tivstip]

fake news or windals 10 released on darkweb all exploits known only by them because insert here the rest

[steven36]

1 hour ago, tivstip said:

fake news or windals 10 released on darkweb all exploits known only by them because insert here the rest

If webroot is fake news  then  everything  antivirus companies say is fake news.  Your just a common layman on a message board  trolling while  there a multi million dollar security company  who won awards for there  testing and products before many times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webroot

 

I wouldnt know ive not used Windows 7 since 2013  or  windows very much at all in over a year but i still have Windows 8.1 i just have free  Avast on it . I know back in  the early 2000s they was a bad problem  on XP with virus , spyware  and  adware and it was a new OS at the time. The only thing  fixed it was windows updates  witch was  SP2 that fixed it but it  just got rid  of the viruses then malware became a thing . 

 

  it was full  of problems for years and Windows 7 is fixing  to run  out of updates. I had a  lot more security  problems on 32 bit OS  i never had many on any x64 bit OS but I always done  updates. I just hope  M$ is nice enough to patch any virus they find  in the wild on Windows 7   like did with the Blue family of viruses on XP  2017 trough the present,  because virus is making a come back. 

 

If your careful  and use protection you should be OK not to catch conman malware and ransomware  But the problem is many people are not careful  and making malware is a very profitable business  if people wouldnt getting infected they would stop making it  I guess,  but i doubt it the 1st hackers made viruses for fun and caused all kinds of havoc .   .

 

Most of the 1st Hackers  who wrote real virus for fun join the CIA after  9-11 and hacked for the Government after that many of them work for Big Tech now Google ,Facebook and Microsoft .

 

 

[tivstip]

you dont need a brain to realise in 6 months you cant get that procent, 6 months ago wasnt that procent so is logic cant be now. To be true that would mean that anyone that uses windows 7 dosent use antivirus. 

[steven36]

4 hours ago, tivstip said:

you dont need a brain to realise in 6 months you cant get that procent, 6 months ago wasnt that procent so is logic cant be now. To be true that would mean that anyone that uses windows 7 dosent use antivirus. 

They use AI  for there findings

 

THE WEBROOT PLATFORM USES 6TH GENERATION MACHINE LEARNING TO ANALYZE 500 BILLION DATA OBJECTS EVERY DAY.
 32B+ URLs
 31B+  File Behaviors
62M+  Mobile Apps
750M+ Domains
4B+ IP Addresses
67M+ Connected  sensors

 

when they say 71% increase  its 71% of a really small number that  got past there antivirus

 

all devices

 

It was way down last year so 71% is not much

 

Thats the way all reports  are

 

if it would of been a lot of infections in 2018 71% would been something but it was very little , only thing it shows is malware is  on the rise in Windows 7  71% of a small number but it been  declining  for over 3 years because of Windows 10.

 

You can sign up and download the  mid year report to see the exact increase malware per device my  report is 1st of the year 2019.

Edit:

Here is a video from the researcher explaining the op

 

 

If it was  a high number got buy there antivirus it would time to switch to something else, so the good news is because of windows 10 malware infection as whole is way down , but the bad news  is it's still a big problem on Windows 7 with malware and blue family viruses.  And it's just going to get worse as long as Windows 7  has lots of users.

[funkyy]

On 10/16/2019 at 4:19 AM, stylemessiah2 said:

Use Avast Free, its not so silly or alarmist

 

I dunno why people use a paid AV these days, i havent paid for AV in well over a decade, youre just paying for the appearance/idea of more security than is in the free one....

"paid" is a four letter word...you'll get banned!!

[debebee]

a good ad blocker can prevent that

[Taviruni]

Well, this is the usual paid campaign when an OS is close to end of service to push people move to the next OS.
Nothing new, and you will see more different ways to scary people.

 

Taviruni