NortonLifeLock’s (NASDAQ:NLOK) research arm, Norton Labs, released its quarterly Consumer Cyber Safety Pulse Report giving details on the top consumer cybersecurity threats from July to September 2022.
Norton Labs inspected some of the more recent attacks on top companies culminating from stolen login credentials to fill out the pulse report. The goal of most of these was to undermine the technology’s used to send automated emails, authentication codes and an entire company’s single sign on to monetize against the victims.
“Cybercriminals have become experts at catching one-time codes used in most two-factor authentication and they know that by undermining the systems that send the codes, their efforts are even more effective. Consumers should use FIDO U2F tokens everywhere they can as they aren’t susceptible to these phishing attacks,” said Jeff Nathan, technical director and research for NortonLifeLock.
According to the pulse report, Norton stopped 750 million threats between July and September, or about 8 million threats a day.
Norton blocked:
- 25.2 million phishing attempts
- 103.7 million file threats
- 330 thousand mobile threats
- 63 thousand ransomware attacks
- Over 1 billion trackers and fingerprinting scripts blocked by Norton AntiTrack
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Cyber Safety Pulse Report
The latest trend for hackers and other cybercriminals is turning to online shopping scams, according to the pulse report. These offer electronics, jewelry, clothes and whatever else they can to lure in victims. There were 397,826 reports of online shopping fraud in 2021 for a total of USD$392 million in losses.
These sites look totally legitimate with polished storefronts, positive testimonials and reviews, and ties to social media accounts. However, once you place an order you’ll either get a counterfeit item or nothing at all. Norton Labs warns shoppers against prices that seem too good to be true. It also advises to be wary of sights requesting unusual payment methods.
The company suggests using a URL lookup tool like Norton Safe Web if a site puts up too many red flags.
Norton Labs also found that 80 per cent of websites either deliberately or accidentally share search terms with advertisers. Trackers can get information from website visits, including a website’s content, domain and a user’s IP address. Giving out a third party’s user’s search terms can include information like medical issues or family and legal situations. Advertisers can then aim their ad machine in directions that could potentially caught considerably discomfort.
